368 ' SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED. 



Observing some object floating on the water at a short 

 distance, they rowed towards it, supposing it to be the dttris 

 of a wreck. On reaching it one of them struck it with his 

 " gaff," when immediately it showed signs of life, and shot 

 out its two tentacular arms, as if to seize its antagonists. 

 The other man, named Theophilus Picot, though naturally 

 alarmed, severed both arms with an axe as they lay on the 

 gunwale of the boat, whereupon the animal moved off, and 

 ejected a quantity of inky fluid which darkened the sur- 

 rounding water for a considerable distance. The men went 

 home, and, as fishermen will, magnified their lost " fish." 

 They " estimated " the body to have been 60 feet in length, 

 and 10 feet across the tail fin ; and declared that when 

 the " fish " attacked them " it reared a parrot-like beak 

 which was as big as a six-gallon keg." 



All this, in the excitement of the moment, Mr. Harvey 

 appears to have been willing to believe, and related without 

 the expression of a doubt. Fortunately, he was able to 

 obtain from the fishermen a portion of one of the tentacular 

 arms which they had chopped off with the axe, and by so 

 doing rendered good service to science. This fragment 

 (Fig. 10), as measured by Mr. Alexander Murray, provincial 

 geologist of Newfoundland, and Professor Verrill, of Yale 

 College, Connecticut, is 17 feet IcTng and 3^ feet in circum- 

 ference. It is now in St. John's Museum. By careful calcu- 

 lation of its girth, the breadth and circumference of the 

 expanded sucker-bearing portion at its extremity, and the 

 diameter of the suckers, Professor Verrill has computed its 

 dimensions to have been as follows : Length of body 10 feet ; 

 diameter of body 2 feet 5 inches. Long tentacular arms 

 32 feet ; head 2 feet ; total length about 44 feet. The upper 

 mandible of the beak, instead of being " as large as a six- 

 gallon keg " would be about 3 inches long, and the lower 



