14 MONSTROUS CEPHALOPODS. 



ture ashore and pilfer the sailor's stores, until he was killed 

 in a desperate battle with dogs and men, — "in summe, he 

 made such good shift for himself e, that hardly and with much 

 adoe they could kill him, albeit he received many a wound by 

 trout-spears which they launced at him." Such tales, which 

 assuredly disprove the vulgar notion that naturalists are mere 

 matter-of-fact men, void of imagination, are not confined to 

 the pages of Pliny : similar, or not more credible ones, may 

 be found in works of comparatively modern date. The 

 author of one of these is confident that the famous kraken 

 of the northern seas, 



" on the deep 



Stretcht like a promontorie " — 



was the product of no Scandinavian romance, but a veritable 

 cuttle ; * and others have described equally gigantic species, 

 the inhabitants of the Indian ocean, which wrap their slimy 

 arms round ships, and by their enormous weight and mus- 

 cular power, drag the vessel and the miserable crew to the 

 bottom, unless the sailors can quickly extricate themselves 

 from the monster, by cutting off its arms with hatchets and 

 sabres ready for the purpose, f It is curious to trace this 

 story downwards. In the pages of Olaus Magnus, whose 

 work was published in 1555, the tale is given in all its breadth, 

 and with undoubting faith in its reality, and it was eagerly 

 copied into the volumes of those naturalists who succeeded 

 him ; but before we reach the times of our immediate prede- 

 cessors, it had become too gross for the age, yet unwilling to 

 lose such an agreeable episode in their dry descriptions, they 

 only curtailed it of its fair proportions, and fitted it to the 

 then lesser appetite for marvels : the ship was now a little 

 boat or canoe, navigated by the native Indians, who never 

 sailed without an axe (for one was now sufficient) to lop off 

 the arms of this dreaded cuttle. J At present we reject as 

 apocryphal even this moderated edition : but Cuvier admits, 

 that in tropical seas it does occasionally happen that certain 

 cephalopods will entwine their arms round the legs of swim- 

 mers, and, by impeding their motions, bring them to a watery 



* The story of the Kraken cuttlefish was invented hy Olaus Magnus, 

 Archhishop of Upsall. — See Cuv. Hist, des Sc. Nat. ii. p. 109. The reader 

 will find some additional particulars to those we have adduced in my friend 

 Dr. Hamilton's work on the " Amphibious Carnivora" (Naturalist's Library, 

 Mammalia, viii.), p. 328 — 336 ; and the Plate 30, copied from Denys 

 Montford, represents an Octopus in the act of dragging a ship to the bottom. 



t For this, and stories equally wonderful and incredible, it is sufficient to 

 refer to Aldrovandus, Opera, v. 7, 33, &c. 



X Pennant Brit. Zool. iv. 116. 



