THE SEPIA OCTOPODIA. 185 



fish (Sepia octopodia'), the celebrated Polypus of the ancients, 

 and by some authors, supposed to be the animal which they 

 called the Kraken? 



HENRIETTA. 



But the Kraken is the wonderful American sea monster. 



MRS. F. 



True; the story has been revived by American navigators. 

 Pliny gives an account of an animal which ravaged the 

 coasts of Bcetica. It used to leave the sea, had arms thirty 

 feet long, and was at last killed by men and dogs, and sent 

 as a present to Lucullus. ^Elian, also, is equally marvellous 

 in his stories about this animal. 



FREDERICK. 



But I suppose that all this is quite fabulous 1 ? 



Perhaps not entirely so, for such tales are seldom invented 

 without some foundation. The ancient accounts of the 

 Polypus, the stories of the Kraken, and the reports of the 

 Norwegian Sea Serpent, all tend to prove the existence of 

 some enormously large animal in the Indian and Northern 

 seas. To none can the description better apply, than to the 

 Sepia odopodia,) which is furnished with arms six times longer 

 than its body, and is known to attain so great a size, and at 

 the same time, to possess so much strength, as only to be 

 approached with caution. In the Indian seas, where Pennant 

 says he has been assured that they have been found with 

 arms nine fathoms (54 feet) long, the islanders, when sailing 

 in their narrow canoes, are said always to go provided with 

 hatchets, in order to cut off the arms of these animals, which 

 they throw on each side of the canoe, and by this means, 

 drag it under water and sink it. Expert swimmers have 

 often perished, by the animal entwining its arms around them 

 and thus drawing them under water. A northern navigator, 

 Captain Magnus Deus, is said to have lost three men in this 

 manner: but for the veracity of these statements we do not 

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