80 



MARINE MA3IMALS OF THE NORTH-WESTERN COAST. 



it is instantly crushed, and a portion or all is swallowed. This hypothesis of the 

 mode in which the animal feeds may be correct. As to the nature of its food 

 there is no question, for it is well known that the ceplralopods are its main 

 dependence ; yet occasionally the codfish, albicore, and bonito, are laid under con- 

 tribution.* But the true and natural way in which this great rover of the hidden 



* Relative to the food of the Sperm Whale, 

 we quote the following from BeaJe's interesting 

 account of the Sepia octojms: 



NATUEE OF THE SPEKM WHALE's FOOD. 



The Sej^ia octopus, or "sea squid," as it is 

 termed by whalers, sometimes reaches an enor- 

 mous size. Mr. Henry Baker, F. R. S., in the 

 PhilosojMcal JVansactions for 1758, p. 777, after 

 having given an interesting description of a 

 specimen, sent to him for examination by the 

 Earl of Macclesfield, states that it can, by spread- 

 ing its arms abroad like a net, so fetter and 

 entangle the prey they inclose, when thej' are 

 drawn together, as to render it incapable of ex- 

 erting its strength ; for, however feeble these 

 branches or arms may be singly, their power 

 united becomes surprising ; and we are assured 

 — Nature is so kind to these animals — that if in 

 their struggles any of their arms are broken off, 

 after some time they will grow again, of which 

 a specimen at the British Museum is an un- 

 doubted proof, for a little new arm is there seen 

 sprouting forth in the room of a large one which 

 had been lost. "It is evident," he continues, 

 "from what has been said, that the sea polyjjus, 

 or octopus, must be terrible to the inhabitants 

 of the waters, in proportion to its size ( Pliny 

 mentions one, whose arms were thirty feet in 

 length), for the close embraces of its arms and 

 adhesion of its suckers must render the efforts of 

 its prey ineffectual, either for escape or resist- 

 ance, unless it be endowed with an extraordi- 

 ary degree of strength." Of the smaller genera 

 of these animals, the reader will find some in- 

 teresting details, by referring to the api^endix to 

 Tuckey's Voyage to the Congo, vol. iii. There is 

 also an account of a newly discovered cepha- 

 lopod, in the appendix to Sir J. Ross' Voyage to 

 the Antarctic Eegions. A gigantic cephalopocl was 

 discovered by Drs. Bank and Solander, in Capt. 

 Cook's first voyage, floating dead upon the sea, 

 surrounded by birds, who were feeding on its 



remains. From the parts of this specimen which 

 are still preserved in the Hunterian Collection, 

 and which have always strongly excited the at- 

 tention of naturalists, it must have measured at 

 least six feet from the end of the tail to the 

 end of the tentacles. But this last we must 

 imagine a mere pigmy, when we consider the 

 enormous dimensions of the one spoken of by 

 Dr. Schewediawer, in the Philosophical Transac- 

 tions, vol. Ixxiii, p. 226, whose tentaculum, or 

 limb, measured twenty-seven feet in length; but 

 let the doctor speak for himself. "One of the 

 gentlemen," says he, "who was so kind as to 

 communicate to me his observations on this sub- 

 ject (ambergris), also, ten years ago, hooked a 

 Spermaceti Whale that had in its mouth a ten- 

 taculum of the Sepia octopoda nearly twenty- 

 seven feet long ! This did not appear its whole 

 length, for one end was corroded by digestion, 

 so that in its natural state it may have been a 

 great deal longer. When we consider," says the 

 Doctor, "the enormous bulk of the tentaculum 

 here spoken of, we shall cease to wonder at the 

 common saying of the fishermen, that the cut- 

 tle-fish is the largest fish of the ocean." In 

 Todd's Cyclopcedia of Anatomy, p. 529, treating 

 of Cephcdopoda, in an admirable paper by Mr. 

 Owen, it states, that "the natives of the Poly- 

 nesian Islands, who dive for shell -fish, have a 

 well-founded dread and abhorrence of these 

 formidable cephalopods, and one can not feel 

 surprised that their feai's should have perhaps 

 exaggerated their dimensions and destructive at- 

 tributes.'' The same learned writer, after having 

 beautifully described another animal of the same 

 order, observes : "Let the reader picture to him- 

 self the projecting margin of the horny hook de- 

 veloped into a long- curved, sharp -pointed claw, 

 and these weapons clustered at the expanded 

 terminations of the tentacles and arranged in a 

 double alternate series, along the whole internal 

 surface of the eight muscular feet, and he will 

 have some idea -of the formidable nature of the 



