PEOF. OWEN ON NEW AND EAEE CEPHALOPODA. 165 



longueur " (p. 1265), are affected by the same conditions of guess and emotions as are 

 those of the 60 feet ascribed by the Newfoundland fishermen to their assailant. " Les 

 yeux, a fleur de tete, avaient un developpement prodigieux et une effrayante fixite. Sa 

 bouche, ou bee de perroquet, pouvait offrir pres d'un demi-metre " (ibid.) The character 

 of the eyes squares with a species of Ommastrephes ; a beak of about 2 feet diameter 

 recalls the dimensions assigned to the same part of this Squid by the Newfoundland 

 fishermen. 



The statement by the estimable naturalist Peron ^ : — " non loin de i'ile de Van 

 Diemen, nous apergumes dans les flots, a pen de distance du navire, une enorme espece 

 de Sepie, vraisemblablement du genre Calmar, de la grosseur d'un tonneau," adds to 

 our knowledge of the geographical distribution of large Cephalopods, but not to that 

 of their exact dimensions. 



Steenstrup's notice^ of a large Cephalopod is of more worth, though made on 

 fragments only of a specimen which the fishermen of the coast of Jutland had cut to 

 pieces for bait. The mouth (or part corresponding to the subject of Plate XXX. 

 fig. 2 and Plate XXXI. fig. 1 of the present paper) is somewhat vaguely stated to be 

 " of the size of an infant's head." It is referred to a decapodal genus, Archiieuthis, as 

 Architeuthis dux. Another large species, seen or taken on the coast of Greenland, is 

 noted by the same estimable naturalist as an Architeuthis monachus ; but the generic 

 distinction from Ommastrephes, d'Orb., is not given. 



The Mediterranean Calamary obtained by Eschricht at Marseilles, and now, or part of 

 it, preserved in the Museum of Copenhagen, is stated to be 1 metre 850 millims. (French) 

 = 6 feet 1 inch (English) in total length, tentacles and trunk included — i. e., I conclude, 

 in the position in which Enoploteuthis cooMi is restored in Plate XXXIII. fig. 1. Here 

 we have an allied Decapod of about the same length, " vela " being developed from 

 some of the cephalic arms. Prof. Steenstrup has assigned to Eschricht's large Medi- 

 terranean Squid the name Ommastrei}hes -pteropus. 



The largest Cephalopod described in the great work of Ferussac and d'Orbigny is the 

 OmmastrejyJies giganteus ^. To this species M. d'Orbigny assigns : — " Longueur totale 

 1 metre 110 millim." (3 feet 8 inches), "longueur du corps 440 millim." (1 foot 

 4-^ inches). It is not stated whether the admeasurement of total length included the 

 outstretched tentacles with the head and body. But in any case the size counted as 

 gigantic falls far short of that evinced by the brachial arm of Plectoteuthis grandis and 

 the admeasured parts of the great Squids captured in Fortune Bay and Trinity Bay, 

 Newfoundland. 



The character of unusual size is not limited to the Decapod division of Cephalopoda ; 

 but the evidence of alleged monstrous Poulpes (Octopoda) is less exact. 



' ' Voyage aus Terres Australes,' tome i. p. 18. 



'' Oplysninger, &c., ' PoAaaidl. Skandinav, Naturforsk. Christiania,' 1857, pp. 182-185, 



' Op. cii. p. 350, Calmars, pL xs, 



2d 2 



