The Flying Squids and Giant Squids 



attribute to the eyes a hard, greedy, sullen, vicious, even malig- 

 nant expression. It gleams with a sort of fiendish intelligence. 



Mr. Harvey becomes enthusiastic over the tentacles. 



What a prehensile weapon is formed by two such arms! 

 For grasping purposes the human hand does not compare with it. 

 For this tough, leathery member, forty feet in length, is as com- 

 pletely under the control of the animal as the paw of the tiger 

 or the cat. It can shoot out like a flash, with a motion so rapid 

 that the eye fails to detect it ; and the moment the armed ex- 

 tremity touches its prey the suckers act like a hair-trigger, and 

 a death-grasp is established from which there is no release except 

 by cutting off the arm itself. It is the perfection of animal 

 mechanism. Naturalists tell us it is the most rapid motion 

 known in the animal kingdom — not excepting even that of the 

 tongue of the toad and the lizard. 



The sperm whale, or cachelot, has long proved the exist- 

 ence of giant cephalopods. Sailors tell of battles witnessed be- 

 tween these two leviathans of the deep. In every such encounter 

 the whale has come off victorious. Whalers are not scientists, 

 however, and their reports are not accurate. When in its death 

 throes the whale often vomits huge masses of undigested squid, 

 including arms bearing suckers of astonishing size. "As big as 

 dinner plates," sailor say. Tentacles have been found in 

 whales' stomachs after capture that measured nearly thirty feet. 

 The portion of these members upon which the digestive juices 

 had acted longest were found to be converted into a clear, gristly 

 condition, with a greenish colour and peculiar fragrance. This 

 is ambergris, a staple perfume. 



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