124 REVIEWS, TRANSLATIONS, AND SELECTED ARTICLES. 



measure from fifteen to eighteen feet from head to tail. The head, 

 in shape like a parrot's beak, was surrounded, hy eight arms of from 

 fire to six feet in length.* Its aspect is frightful ; its colour, brick- 

 red. In a word, this rudimentary creature, this viscous and colossal 

 embryon, presents an aspect at once repulsive and terrible.f 



M. Bouyer then goes on to state, that his officers and men wished 

 to lower a boat and renew the attack, but that he feared to expose 

 them to so unequal a contest, and that, finally, the chase was 

 abandoned. The description drawn up by M. Berthelot, the French 

 consul at TeneriflTe, agrees essentiaUy with that of 31. Bouyer, 

 although difiering in some of its details. The animal is said to have 

 presented a fusiform body, five or six metres in length, with a pair 

 of fleshy lobes or fins at its lower extremity. It is also stated, that 

 when wounded by one of the musket balls, the creature vomited a 

 large quantity of blood mixed with slimy matters of a strong musky 

 odour. A species of Medone is known to emit an odour of this 

 kind; but there are two points here of a somewhat suspicious 

 character. In the first place, the blood of the cephalopods, as that 

 of other mollusca, is colorless ; and secondly, is it not remarkable 

 that no mention is made of any discharge of "ink," during the 

 attack to which the animal was subjected ? The supposed appearance 

 of blood, however, may have been caused by a discharge of this kind. 



To the observations recorded by the actual observers of this 

 creature, M. Milne Edwards has added the following remarks : — 

 " The animal described in these communications, belongs apparently 

 to one of those species of gigantic cephalopods, of which the existence 

 has already been announced on various occasions, and the remains of 

 which are preserved in several museums : in that, for example, of 

 the College of Surgeons in London. Aristotle speaks of a large 

 calamary (Tenuis), five cubits in length ; and without referring to 

 the fables of Pliny, and the evident exaggerations of Olaus Magnus 

 and Denis de Montfort, we may recall the discovery of P^ron, on 

 the coast of Tasmania, of a calamary with arms of six or seven feet 

 in length, and seven or eight inches in diameter. More recently 



• In the calamary the arms are ten in number. If the species reaUy belong to the octo- 

 pod division of the cephalopoda, it can scarcely be referred to any recognised genus. All 

 the known octopods appear to possess a comparatively short andbursiform body, without "a 

 tail " or expansion at the lower extremity. 



t We here translate literally. It is perhaps needless to observe that the cephalopods are 

 of comparatively high organization, or present, at least, nothing of an embryonic character. 

 M. Mieh61et, we fear, has to answer for our author's zoology. 



