MONSTROUS CEPHALOPODS. 15 



grave. * I believe that no unquestioned example of such an 

 accident can be quoted to corroborate this statement, although 

 in thus treating the subject I expose myself to the rebuke of 

 Malte-Brun, who thinks that we over-act the part of the 

 sceptic in disbelieving " those very circumstantial accounts, 

 both of the ancients and the moderns. "f That the cepha- 

 lopods have size and strength enough for the truculent deeds 

 ascribed to them may be admitted, but the will and the neces- 

 sary agility is wanting. Mr. Pennant, in reference to the 

 Octopus vulgaris, says, " a friend of mine, long resident among 

 the Indian isles, and a diligent observer of nature, informed 

 me that the natives affirm that some have been seen two 

 fathoms broad over their centre, and each arm nine fathoms 

 long." " The natives of the Polynesian Islands, who dive 

 for shell-fish," I can tell you on the authority of Mr. Owen, 

 " have a well-founded dread and abhorrence" of the Onycho- 

 teuthis ; and, considering its size and formidable armature, 

 one cannot feel surprised that their fears should have exag- 

 gerated its destructive attributes. The celebrated diver, 

 Pescecola, whom the Emperor Frederic II. employed to de- 

 scend into the Strait of Messina, saw there, with horror, 

 enormous cuttle-fish attached to the rocks, the arms of which, 

 being several yards long, were more than sufficient to strangle 

 a man. J Mrs. Graham speaks of having seen a species, the 

 arms of which were eighteen feet in length ; and Sander- 

 Rang met at sea with a kind of Octopus, with short arms, as 

 big as a wine cask ; hence this excellent naturalist is induced 

 almost to believe that the stories of the kraken, and other 

 gigantic cephalopods, are only a little exaggerated and em- 

 blazoned. § 



* Mem. sur les Mollusques, i. 4. Plin. Hist. Nat. ix. cap. 48. — " The 

 cuttlefish of the Indian seas are said to be sometimes so large as to attack 

 the pearl-divers, and strangle them in the serpent folds of their arm -like 

 feet. We by no means think this account is devoid of truth ; for even in 

 the temperate regions of Europe, we have been frequently assured, by the 

 Sicilian fishermen, that these animals instinctively cling to living bodies 

 that come in their way, and that many instances have occurred, among the 

 coral-divers, where life has been thus endangered. We have ourselves seen 

 an undescribed species, not uncommon on the coast of Messina, whose arms 

 were much thicker than the wrist of an ordinary man : this species is equally 

 dreaded by the Sicilian mariners, although, on account of its delicate taste, 

 it is sought after, and much prized, as an article of food." — Swainson in 

 Murray's Encyclop. of Geography, p. 861. Lond. 1840. 



+ Syst. of Geography, i. 504. J Ibid. i. 316. 



§ Manuel, 86. Mr. Gray says that the largest cuttle which has been 

 " zoologically described," is only twenty-seven inches in length and fourteen 

 inches broad. — Spic. Zool. 3. But Owen, in Cyclop. Anut. et Phys. i. 629, 

 mentions an Onychoteuthis which, from its remains preserved in the Ilun- 

 terian Museum, must have measured at least six feet from the end of the 

 tail to the end of the tentacles. 



