PROF. OWEN 0]N' NEW AND EAEE CEPHALOPODA. 167 



scribed in the subjoined paragraph of an article in 'Land and AVater' 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, gTasping 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 caj)sizes the 

 craft, 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 romanced 



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 XXXV. 



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, witli judicious critical remarks, will be found in the 

 instructive work entitled ' The Octopus ; or, the " Devil-fish " of Piction and of Pact,' 12nio, 1875, by Henry 

 Lee, F.L.S., P.G.S., P.Z.S. 



^ Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. ii. pi. xxi. fig. 1. I do not cite Loligo luticeps (fig. 6) or Octopus semipalmatus, 

 because they were taken from an extensive mass of the Sargassum or Gulf-weed, a favourite breeding-place of 

 pelagic Cephalopods, and were probably immature specimens of their species (p. 111). 



