402 



SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED. 



they the instructive privilege, possessed of late years by the 

 public in England, of being able to 

 watch attentively, and at leisure, the 

 habits and movements of these strangely 

 modified mollusks living in great tanks 

 of sea-water in aquaria. If they had 

 been thus acquainted with them, I be- 

 lieve they would have recognised in their 

 : supposed snake the elongated body of a 

 giant squid. 



When swimming, these squids propel 

 themselves backwards by the out-rush 

 of a stream of water from a tube pointed 

 j in a direction contrary to that in which 

 3 the animal is proceeding. The tail part, 

 therefore, goes in advance, and the body 

 tapers towards this, almost to a blunt 

 | point. At a short distance from the 

 ; actual extremity two flat fins project 

 \ from the body, one on each side, as 

 ! shown in Figs. 17 and 19, so that this 

 i end of the squid's body somewhat re- 

 sembles in shape the government 

 "broad arrow." It 'is a habit of these 

 : squids, the small species of which are 

 met with in some localities in teeming 

 abundance, to swim on the smooth sur- 

 face of the water in hot and calm 

 weather. The arrow-headed tail is then 

 raised out of water, to a height which 

 in a large individual might be three feet 

 or more ; and, as it precedes the rest of 

 the body, moving at the rate of several miles an hour, it 



