1874.] MR. W. S. KENT ON A GIGANTIC CEPHALOPOD. 1/9 



feet from the boat, suddenly shot out from around its head several 

 long arms of corpse-like fleshiness, grappling with them for the boat 

 and seeking to envelop it in their folds. Only two of these reached 

 the craft, and, owing to their length, went completely over and 

 beyond it. Seizing his hachet with a desperate effort, one of the men 

 succeeded in severing these limbs with a single well-delivered blow ; 

 and the creature finding itself worsted, immediately disappeared 

 beneath the waters, leaving in the boat its amputated members as a 

 trophy of the terrible encounter. One of the arms was unfortunately 

 destroyed before its value was known ; but the other, when brought 

 to St. John's and examined by the Rev. M. Harvey, was found to 

 measure no less than nineteen feet ; and the fisherman who acted as 

 surgeon declares there must have been at least six feet more of this 

 arm left attached to the monster's body. This separated member is 

 described by Mr. Harvey as being livid in colour and pointed at its 

 extremity, where alone it is covered with rows of cartilaginous horny 

 suckers, each about the size of a quarter-dollar. Unfortunately, the 

 fishermen were too much frightened during the short time the 

 adventure lasted to form a reliable opinion of the length of the 

 animal's body ; under the influence of terror, they set it down at 

 forty feet, an estimate which, notwithstanding the extraordinary 

 dimensions of the arm secured, must be received as a considerable 

 exaggeration. 



Mr. Harvey's supposition that this monster probably belonged to 

 the Teuthidae, or that section of the Dibranchiate Cephalopoda in- 

 cluding the Squids and Calamaries, distinguished by the possession 

 of eight sessile arms and two additional tentacula of much greater 

 length, is entirely borne out by the description communicated ; and 

 fortunately we are in possession of other substantial evidence which 

 proves beyond doubt the existence of a species of Calamary as formi- 

 dable in point of size as the one just described. In the vaults of the 

 British Museum, in fact, there has been long since preserved a single 

 arm of a huge cephalopod, measuring from one end to the other no 

 less than nine feet ; the circumference at its base is eleven inches ; 

 and thence it gradually tapers off, terminating in a fine point. The 

 suckers, which cover the whole of the under surface of this arm, 

 are distributed in two alternating rows, numbering from 145 to 150 

 suckers to each row, those at the base having a diameter of half an 

 inch, and gradually decreasing in size as they approach the further 

 attenuate extremity. No authenticated record of the circumstances 

 attending the capture of this remarkable specimen, or of the locality 

 whence obtained, appears to have been preserved ; but it is believed 

 to have come from the South- American coast. 



The fact that the suckers of this colossal arm are all peduncula- 

 ted or attached through the medium of a slender stalk, instead of 

 being sessile as in the Octopus, has been already mentioned by my- 

 self* as indicating that the creature belonged to the ten-armed Teu- 



* Article on the " Octopus " in the Official Guide-book to the Brighton 

 Aquarium, by W. Saville Kent, then curator, 1st edition, Brighton, 1873, also 

 in 2nd edition since published, with the author's name excised. 



