PEOF. OWEN OX NEW AND EAEB CEPHALOPODA. 161 



The locality I next proceed to notice in connexion with Cephalopods of unusual size 

 is the North Atlantic. For the first of these instances I am indebted to the Rev. M. 

 Harvey, of St. John's, Nev^'foundland, who transmitted two photographs of parts of a 

 specimen with the following notes of its capture : — 



"A few weeks ago" (December 1873) "two fishermen lying off St John's observed 

 an object floating in the water which they took to be a portion of a wreck. On 

 reaching it one of the men struck it with the boat-hook, whereupon the supposed 

 piece of wreck became alarmingly lively, ' rearing a parrot-like beak as big as a six- 

 gallon keg,' with which it smote the boat. Next it ' shot out from its head two huge 

 livid arms, and began to twine them about the boat.' Happily an axe lay handy, and 

 with it the boatman, recovering from the surprise into which this unexpected attack 

 had thrown himself and his mate, cut off both the arms as they lay over the gunwale, 

 whereupon the fish backed off and ejected an immense quantity of inky fluid that 

 darkened the water for a great distance about." 



In the above account, published with photograph no. 2 (PI. XXXIII. fig. 2), the 

 passages quoted are verbatim testimonies of the boatmen, and bespeak, besides their 

 emotions, the known characteristics of a Cephalopod, viz. the parrot-like beak, the 

 protrusile tentacles, and the emission of the defensive ink. 



Tentacles of 18 feet would easily stretch across or even clasp an ordinary fishing-boat. 

 The beak, " as big as a six-gallon keg," wielded by an animal " 60 feet in length and 

 5 feet in diameter, with a tail 10 feet across, as observed in the air," may be relegated 

 to the region of fable, from which the prosaic naturalist is forbidden to adorn his 

 descrij)tions. 



The photograph no. 1 is of the head, arms, and tentacles of a Decapod difi'ering from 

 Sejna, and resembling Sepioteuthis, Loligo, LoUrjopsis, Omiiiastrejihcs, and Omjchoteuthis, 

 in having the acetabula in two alternate rows on each arm. It differs from Oiujclioteuthis 

 in having the suckers of the tentacles as well as of the arms not provided with hooks. 

 In this photograph five of the cephalic arms are shown with more or less of the aceta- 

 bular surface exposed ; and there seems to be some difference in their relative length ; 

 but this cannot be precisely determined and applied to the homologues of the arms, 

 1-4, as, for example, in Ommastre])lies ensifer (PI. XXVIII. fig. 1). There is no indi- 

 cation of vela or of membranous extensions of the arms, as in that species and in 

 Plectoteuthis. 



The terminal acetabuliferous expansion of the tentacles in photograph no. 2 (PI. 

 XXXIII. fig. 2) supports along the three middle fifths two alternating series of large 

 suckers ; an indeterminate number of irregularly disposed smaller ones are pretty 

 closely scattered over the proximal and terminal fifths of the expansion ; a few small 

 suckers are added in a single row along each border of the double row of large ones. 

 The acetabular expansion of the tentacle is gradual, and does not exceed at its broadest 

 part more than two diameters of the supporting stem. The length of the expansion is 



