GIGANTIC CEPHALOPODS. 



85 



which arc found in the European seas, for its arms, instead of 

 suckers, were armed with a double range of claws, very sharp, 

 resembling those of the cat, and which it could, like that animal, 

 withdraw at will." Parts of this mollusk having been sent to 

 London, and placed in the Museum of the College of Surgeons, 

 Owen examined them. He says : " The fins have a rhomboidal 

 form, which allowed the animal to swim both forwards and back- 

 wards." Comparing it with smaller specimens of the same 

 species, and allowing a similar proportion for its arms, the entire 

 animal must have exceeded 7 feet, its body being at least 4 feet 

 in length. 



D'Orbigi^ recognized in this mollusk the distinctive charac- 

 ters of his genus Enoploteuthis, and he called it E. Molinse. 



Is it the same animal which Peron saw, and of which he too 

 briefly speaks in his " Voyage " (i, 18)? "The same day (Jan. 

 9), not far from the island of Van Diemen, we perceived on the 

 waves, at a little distance from the vessel, an enormous species 

 of Sepia, probably a Calamary, of the size of a tun. It rolled 

 noisily in the midst of the waves, and its large arms sprawling 

 to their surface were agitated like enormous reptiles. Each of 

 these arms was not less than G or 7 feet in length, by a diameter 

 of 7 or 8 inches." 



Prof. Brewer, of Yale College, has seen Octopi measuring 

 14 feet from tip to tip of the expanded arms, in the San Fran- 

 cisco markets.* 



In the winter of l,S71-2,at Ilinlink, Unalashka, a large number 

 of giant cuttles were stranded at various times. One of these, a 

 species, apparently, of Pinnoctopus, measured 6 feet from tip 

 to tip of the arms. The color was white, ocellated with brick-red, 

 and the larger suckers measured 25 inches across, f 



A still more remarkable form, however, was subsequently 

 obtained, perhaps the Onyclioteutliis P>ergi Licht, one specimen 

 of which measured, from the posterior end of the body to the 

 mutilated ends of the tentacular arms, 110 inches, with a body- 

 girth of 3 feet, and weighing nearly 200 pounds. Another spec- 

 imen more mutilated measured SO inches in length. The larger 



* Am. Nat., vii, 94, 1873. 



f There is evidently a mistake in measurement of the suckers ; perhaps 

 lillimetres, instead of inches, is intended. 



