CEPHALOPODS. 485 



furnished with two large projecting eyes ; the mouth is surrounded with 

 ten arms, provided with suckers, two of these arms being much longer 

 than the others, and with peduncles or foot-stalks to the suckers. 



The internal pen of the calmar diiTers much from that of the 

 cuttles ; it is thin, horny, transparent, and somewhat resembling a 

 feather, from a portion of which the barbs have been removed. Their 

 food consists chiefly of small fishes and molluscs, though with the 

 greater fishes and cetaceje they carry on constant war. They are 

 caught and used for various purposes ; along the coast they are eaten ; 

 the fishermen use them as bait, especially in fishing for cod. 



Dr. Grant describes the body of Sepiola vulgaris^ found on our 

 coast, as measuring about two inches in length, and as much in 

 breadth, while the head measures half an inch in length, and, from the 

 magnitude of the eyes, is equal in breadth with the body. In Ony- 

 choteuthis, distinguished for its uncinated suckers, the eyes are of the 

 size of those of a man. In Cook's first voyages, the naturalists to the 

 expedition, Banks and Solander, to quote Professor Owen's account, 

 " found the dead carcase of a gigantic species of this kind floating in 

 the sea between Cape Horn and the Polynesian Islands, in 30* 44' 

 S. lat., and 110° 10' W. long. It was surrounded by sea birds, which 

 were feeding on its remains. From the parts of this specimen which 

 are still preserved in the Hunterian Museum, and which have always 

 strongly excited the attention of naturalists, it must have measured at 

 least six feet from the end of the tail to the end of the tentacles." 



It is no easy task to separate the real from the fabulous history of 

 the Cephalopods. Aristotle and PUny have alike assisted, by their 

 marvellous relations, to throw that halo of wonder round it which the 

 light of modern science has not altogether dispelled. Pliny the Ancient 

 relates the history of an enormous cuttle-fish which haunted the coast 

 of Spain, and destroyed the fishing-grounds. He adds that this 

 .gigantic creature was finally taken, that its body weighed 7 00 lbs., 

 and that its arms were ten yards in length. Its head came by right 

 to Lucullus, to whose gastronomical privileges be all honour. It was 

 so large, says Pliny, that it filled fifteen amphorae, and weighed 7oolbs- 

 also. 



Some naturalists of the Renaissance, such as Olaiis Magnus and 

 Denis de Montfort, gave credit — which they are scarcely justified in 

 doing — to the assertions of certain writers of the north of Europe, who 

 believed seriously in the existence of a sea-monster of prodigious size 

 which haunted the northern seas. This monster has received the 

 name of the Kralzcn. The Kraken was long the terror of these seas ; 

 it arrested ships in spite of the action of the wind, sails, and oars. 



