1874.] MR. W. S. KENT ON A GIGANTIC CEPHALOPOD. 181 



adventure lasted fully three hours, an interval which sufficed for one 

 of the officers on board, Monsieur Rodolphe, to make a hasty sketch 

 of the scene, &fac simile of which is represented in the admirable 

 marine text-book * Das Meer,' lately published in Berlin by Dr. 

 Schleider. The commander of the ship, Captain Bouyer, and Consul 

 Sabin Berthelot, then with him, additionally testify to the gigantic 

 size of this creature, to the body alone of which they assigned a length 

 of from 15 to 18 feet, the arms, according to the sketch, measuring 

 something less. Satisfied as to the truth of this account, Crosse 

 and Fischer have conferred upon this animal the name of Loligo 

 bougeri. No portion of this last example having been preserved ; 

 the same difficulty is attached to the determining of its exact specific 

 identity with any other form encountered before or since, as seems 

 to apply to Prof. Steenstrup's Architeuthis monachus and A. dux. 



The two fragments now preserved in the British and St. John's Mu- 

 seums, in fact, apparently constitute the only substantial material at 

 present available to work upou ; and of the two, that obtained for the 

 latter institution is calculated to prove the more important. Especial 

 value attaches itself to the form and mode of distribution of the 

 suckers on the clubbed extremity of the two longer tentacles ; and 

 Mr. Harvey will render a great service to science by making a second 

 careful examination and report in this direction on the example that 

 has lately passed through his hands. Iu his brief account already 

 given, no mention is made of horny uncini or claws in association 

 with these suckers, a fact which suffices to indicate that the animal 

 must not be classed with Onychoteuthis, Euoploteuthis*, or other of 

 the armed Calamaries, but rather with Loligo, Sepioteuthis, and its 

 allies, having only simple suckers. The evidence supplied by the 

 shorter arm preserved in the British Museum points to a similar 

 conclusion. 



The evidence already adduced seeming to indicate that this mighty 

 Cephalopod will scarcely be found, upon more intimate acquaintance, 

 to accord sufficiently with Loligo proper as to be placed in the 

 same genus, I propose, provisionally, to create for it the new 

 generic title of Megaloteuthis (megalos, huge ; and teuthis, a cala- 

 mary), and to further distinguish the particular species, of which 

 there is now sufficient material for reidentification in the tentacle 

 deposited in the St. John's Museum, as Megaloteuthis harveyi, in 

 grateful acknowledgment of the source to which we are indebted for 

 this most interesting and important accession to our previous know- 

 ledge of these formidable Mollusca. 



Addenda. 



Since the composition of the foregoing, an interesting article cor- 

 roborating the Rev. Mr. Harvey's account, and furnishing additional 



* In the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons is an arm of a species of 

 this genus, E. unguiculata, found by Banks and Solander during Cook's first voy- 

 age, supposed to have been 6 feet long when perfect. The natives of the Poly- 

 nesian Islands, who dive for shellfish, have a well-founded dread of these formi- 

 dable animals. {Owen.') 



