CEPHALOPODS. 489 



Dr. Steenstrup, of Copenhagen, who published a description of this 

 creature under the name of Architeuthis dux, shows a portion of the 

 arm of another Cephalopod, which is as large as the thigh-bone of a 

 man. But an apparently well-authenticated fact connected with these 

 gigantic Cephalopods is related by Lieutenant Bayer, of the French 

 corvette Alecton, and M. Sabin Berthelot, French Consul at the 

 Canary Islands, by whom the report is made to the Academie des 

 Sciences. 



The steam-corvette Alecfon was between Teneriffe and Madeira 

 when she fell ui with a gigantic calamar, not less — according to the 

 account — than fifteen metres (fifty feet) long, without reckoning its 

 eight formidable arms, covered with suckers, and about twenty feet 

 in circumference at its largest part, the head terminating in many 

 arms of enormous size, the other extremity terminating in two fleshy 

 lobes or fins of great size, the weight of the whole being estimated at 

 4,000 lbs. ; the flesh was soft, glutinous, and of reddish-brick colour. 



The commandant, wishing in the interests of science to secure the 

 monster, actually engaged it in battle. Numerous shots were aimed 

 at it, but the balls traversed its flaccid and glutinous mass without 

 causing it any vital injury. But after one of these attacks the waves 

 were observed to be covered with foam and blood, and, singular 

 thing, a strong odour of musk was inhaled by the spectators. This 

 musk odour we have already noticed as being peculiar to many of 

 the Cephalopods. 



The musket-shots not having produced the desired results, 

 harpoons were employed, but they took no hold on the soft impal- 

 pable flesh of the marine monster. When it escaped from the harpoon 

 it dived under the ship, and came up again at the other side. They 

 succeeded at last in getting the harpoon to bite, and in passing a 

 bowling hitch round the posterior part of the animal. But when they 

 attempted to hoist it out of the water the rope penetrated deeply into 

 the flesh, and separated it into two parts, the head with the arms and 

 tentacles dropping into the sea and making off, while the fins and 

 posterior parts were brought on board : they weighed about forty 

 pounds. 



The crew were eager to pursue, and would have launched a boat, 

 but the commander refused, fearing that the animal might capsize it. 

 The object was not, in his opinion, one in which he could risk the 

 lives of his crew. Plate XXII. is copied from M. Berthelot's 

 coloured representation of this scene. " It is probable," M. Moquin- 

 Tandon remarks, commenting on M. Berthelot's recital, "that this 

 colossal mollusc was sick or exhausted by some recent struggle with 



