PROF. OWEN ON NEW AND RARE CEPHALOPODA. 



159 



Ommastrejjhes, which measured not less than 22 feet 10^ inches in length from the 

 end of the body to that of the tentacles" i. 



In a subsequent account ^ M. Velain notes in this locality two species of Squid 

 (Ommastrephes) which are seen to dart, like arrows, from the surface of the sea, and 

 afford food to the penguins {Eudyptes chrysolopha) ; also a small Poulpe, taken in the 

 sea which occupies the crater, and which is referred to Octopus vulgaris. This is 

 captured by the fishermen of the island for bait ; and the same men testified to the 

 apparition nearly every year of a gigantic Cephalopod. Fortunately, on the 2nd of 

 November, 1874, one of these molluscous giants was cast by unusual storm-waves upon 

 the northern beach of the island, and became the subject, as it lay, of the photographer 

 of the expedition, M. Cazin. The photograph is copied in the plate, fig. 8, given on 

 p. 81 of M. Velain's "Observations" in the undercited volume of the 'Archives de 

 Zoologie,' and forms the subject of the cut, fig. 3. 



Pis. 3. 



Of this large Cephalopod the acetabula are said to be provided " with a corneous 

 hoop, finely denticulated," on which character, and their disposition upon the arms, 



' " Daus lea premiers jours de Novembre, un raz de maree a jete sur la chaussoe du nord un C'almar du 

 groupe des Ommastrephes, qui ne mesurait pas moins de T^-IS, de rcxtrcmite du cornet a cello des bras 

 tentaculaires." — " Ohservatioiis effectuees a Vile de Saint Paul," Comptes Rendus des Seances de I'Acadimie 

 des Sciences, t. Ixxx. 1875, p. 998. 



2 " Observations generales sur la Eaune des deux ilea, suivics d'une description des Mollusques," ArchiYes 

 de Zoologie Expeiimentale et Geueralc, by H. de Lacaze-Duthiers, 8to, tome xvi., 1877, p. 1, 



