PROF. OWEN ON NEW AND RARE CEPHALOPODA. 167 
scribed in the subjoined paragraph of an article in ‘Land and Water’ by my friend 
Frank Buckland, M.A., F.Z.S.:— 
“This carving is an inch and a half long, and about as big as a walnut. — It repre- 
sents a lady in a quasi-leaning attitude; and at first sight it is difficult to perceive what 
she is doing; but after a while the details come out magnificently. ‘The unfortunate 
lady has been seized by an Octopus while bathing (for the lady wears a bathing-dress). 
One extended arm of the Octopus is in the act of coiling round the lady’s neck, and 
she is endeavouring to pull it off with her right hand ; another arm of the sea-monster 
is entwined round the left wrist, while the hand is fiercely tearing at the mouth of the 
brute. The other arms of the Octopus are twined round, grasping the lady’s body and 
waist: in fact, her position reminds one very much of Laocoon in the celebrated statue 
of the snakes seizing him and his two sons. The sucking-disks of the Octopus are 
carved exactly as they are in nature; and the colour of the body of the creature, 
together with the formidable aspect of the eye, are wonderfully represented.” 
This work of art is in the possession of Mr. Bartlett, of the Zoological Gardens. 
The exciting incidents with which M. Victor Hugo adorns his narrative of ‘The 
Toilers of the Sea’ relate to the attacks of a large Poulpe. ‘The fishermen of the 
Channel Islands and opposite coast of France retain the belief in a still huger species, 
which coils its cable-like arms about the mast of the sailing-vessel and capsizes the 
eraft, the crew of which it devours. De Montfort, in his ‘Histoire Naturelle des 
Mollusques,’ admitted a figure of the achievement of the monster “ Pieuvre ;” but this, 
with the “ Kraken” and the “ Great Sea-Serpent,” still remains a denizen of the 
dreamy ocean of credulity and romance}. 
Sufficient, however, of the evidence needed by the naturalist has been obtained to 
demonstrate that the greatest bulk in the molluscous subkingdom is attained by 
members of its most highly organized class; in this also is manifested the most 
extensive range of the character of individual bulk. 
From the diminutive Cranchia?, size rises, in the dibranchiate Cephalopods, to 
that of Cook’s hook-armed Squid, to that of the castaway on the Island of St. Paul 
(fig. 3, p. 157), to the still greater dimensions of the assailant of the Newfoundland fishing- 
boat, and to that of the huge possessor of the subject of Plates XXXIV. and XXXYV. 
Far back in time, moreover, a similar series of specific dimensions is indicated by 
remains of extinct members of the lower or tetrabranchiate order of Cephalopods. 
Their chambered and siphonated shells ranged from diminutive kinds not surpassing 
? Other references to recorded gigantic Cuttlefishes, with judicious critical remarks, will be found in the 
instructive work entitled ‘The Octopus; or, the “ Devil-fish ” of Fiction and of Fact,’ 12mo, 1875, by Henry 
Lee, F.L.S., F.G.8., F.Z.8. 
* Trans. Zool. Soc. yol. ti. pl. xxi. fig. 1. I do not cite Loligo luticeps (fig. 6) or Octopus semipalmatus, 
because they were taken from an extensive mass of the Saryasswm or Gulf-weed, a favourite breeding-place of 
pelagic Cephalopods, and were probably immature specimens of their species (p. 111). 
