CEPHALOPODS. 489 
‘Dr. Steenstrup, of Copenhagen, who published a description of this 
creature under the name of Architeuthis dux, shows a portion of the 
‘arm of another Cephalopod, which is as large as the thigh-bone of a 
man. But an apparently well-authenticated fact connected with these 
gigantic Cephalopods is related by Lieutenant Bayer, of the French 
corvette Avecton, and M. Sabin Berthelot, French Consul at the 
Canary Islands, by whom the report is made to the Académie des 
Sciences. 
The steam-corvette A/ecfon was between Teneriffe and Madeira 
when she fell in with a gigantic calamar, not less—according to the 
account—than fifteen métres (fifty feet) long, without reckoning its 
eight formidable arms, covered with suckers, and about twenty feet 
in circumference at its largest part, the head terminating in many 
arms of enormous size, the other extremity terminating in two fleshy 
lobes or fins of great size, the weight of the whole being estimated at 
4,000 lbs. ; the flesh was soft, glutinous, and of reddish-brick colour. 
The commandant, wishing in the interests of science to secure the 
monster, actually engaged it in battle. Numerous shots were aimed 
at it, but the balls traversed its flaccid and glutinous mass without 
‘causing it any vital injury. But after one of these attacks the waves 
were observed to be covered with foam and blood, and, singular 
thing, a strong odour of musk was inhaled by the spectators. This 
musk odour we have already noticed as being peculiar to many of 
the Cephalopods. 
The musket-shots not having produced the desired results, 
harpoons were employed, but they took no hold on the soft impal- 
pable flesh of the marine monster. When it escaped from the harpoon 
it dived under the ship, and came up again at the other side. They 
succeeded at last in getting the harpoon to bite, and in passing a 
bowling hitch round the posterior part of the animal. But when they 
attempted to hoist it out of the water the rope penetrated deeply into 
the flesh, and separated it into two parts, the head with the arms and 
tentacles dropping into the sea and making off, while the fins and 
posterior parts were brought on board: they weighed about forty 
pounds. . 
The crew were eager to pursue, and would have launched a boat, 
but the commander refused, fearing that the animal might capsize it. 
The object was not, in his opinion, one in which he could risk the 
lives of his crew. PLaTE XXII..is copied from M. Berthelot’s 
coloured representation of this scene. “It is probable,” M. Moquin- 
Tandon remarks, commenting on M. Berthelot’s recital, “that this 
colossal mollusc was sick or exhausted by some recent struggle with 
