The Mighty Deep 



with its enormous parrot-beak " — all this and 

 more has been pictured by Mr. Bullen, from 

 personal observation, in words which cannot be 

 strengthened. No tale of monsters in bygone 

 ages can well exceed it. 



If further proof be needed of the part played 

 by cutdefishes in the larder of Sperm whales, it 

 is given by those whales, which, when harpooned 

 and in their dying agonies, throw up the contents 

 of their vast stomachs. Out of the stomachs 

 come great masses of undigested cuttlefish, cubic 

 blocks many feet in diameter, swallowed whole 

 and not yet broken up. 



In 1895 an immense cuttlefish was thus dis- 

 gorged by a whale, and was found on examination 

 to belong to a new and unknown species. The 

 head had vanished ; but the body was clothed in 

 a strong armour of neatly arranged scales. So 

 this was veritably an ''armoured" kind. 



Another monster, ejected from the stomach of 

 another whale, had great suckers, each sucker 

 being supplied with "claws as powerful as those 

 of a tiger."^ This last also had ocean-lamps, or 

 ''phosphorescent organs," doubtless a help to 

 himself in ocean depredations, and an added 

 terror to myriads of fleeing fishes. 



* Geographical Journal^ Nov., 1898. 

 218 



