CEPHALOPODS. ‘485 
furnished with two large projecting eyes ; the mouth is surrounded with 
ten arms, provided with suckers, two of these arms being much longer 
than the others, and with peduncles or foot-stalks to the suckers. 
The internal pen of the calmar differs much from that of the 
cuttles ; it is thin, horny, transparent, and somewhat resembling a 
feather, from a portion of which the barbs have been removed. Their 
food consists chiefly of small fishes and molluscs, though with the 
greater fishes and cetacese they carry on constant war. They are 
caught and used for various purposes ; along the coast they are eaten ; 
the fishermen use them as bait, especially in fishing for cod. 
Dr. Grant describes the body of Sepiola vulgaris, found on our 
coast, as measuring about two inches in length, and as much in 
breadth, while the head measures half an inch in length, and, from the 
magnitude of the eyes, is equal in breadth with the body. In Ony- 
choteuthis, distinguished for its uncinated suckers, the eyes are of the 
size of thoseof a man. In Cook’s first voyages, the naturalists to the 
expedition, Banks and Solander, to quote Professor Owen’s account, 
‘found the dead carcase of a gigantic species of this kind floating in 
the sea between Cape Horn and the Polynesian Islands, in 30° 44’ 
S. lat., and 110° 10’ W. long. It was surrounded by sea birds, which 
were feeding on its remains. From the parts of this specimen. which 
are still preserved in the Hunterian Museum, and which have always 
strongly excited the attention of naturalists, it must have measured at 
least six feet from the end of the tail to the end of the tentacles.” 
It is no easy task to separate the real from the fabulous history of 
the Cephalopods. Aristotle and Pliny have alike assisted, by their 
marvellous relations, to throw that halo of wonder round it which the 
light of modern science has not altogether dispelled. Pliny the Ancient 
relates the history of an enormous cuttle-fish which haunted the coast 
of Spain, and destroyed the fishing-grounds. He adds that this 
gigantic creature was finally taken, that its body weighed 7oolbs., 
and that its arms were ten yards in length. Its head came by right 
to Lucullus, to whose gastronomical privileges be all honour. It was 
so large, says Pliny, that it filled fifteen amphorse, and weighed 7oolbs. 
also. 
Some naturalists of the Renaissance, such as Olaiis Magnus and 
Denis de Montfort, gave credit—which they are scarcely justified in 
doing—to the assertions of certain writers of the north of Europe, who 
believed seriously in the existence of a sea-monster of prodigious size 
which haunted the northern seas. This monster has received the 
name of the Kraken, The Kraken was long the terror of these seas ; 
it arrested ships in spite of the action of the wind, sails, and oars, 
