484 ZOOLOGY. 
young are born blind, and remain so until they are half grown 
certainly, perhaps longer. The male seems to care for and assist 
in rearing the young. He will go out and capture a grasshopper or 
cricket, carry it home and give it to his nursing companion. All 
the actions, one to the other, of a married couple, indicate in the 
untrammelled state, much affection and caressing attention. No 
bear or panther could manifest a greater degree of ferocious de- 
structiveness than does the male of this diminutive tribe of animals 
when he is molested by his kind, or when he comes in contact with 
a rival. The odor emanating from the box in which I kept them, 
when the box is clean, is dilute musk, with a slightly sweet accom- 
paniment. They have their young about the 10th of February, 
that is, as far as my observation goes. How long their period of 
gestation, or how often they produce their young, is not yet known 
tome. They sleep all day. I have had opportunity to make 
observation on the action of four half and four full-grown speci- 
mens, some of them through a period of twenty days. The results 
are recorded above. I wish you to examine them and give me 
their name and tell me to what families they are allied. — Abstract 
of a letter to the Smithsonian Institution by G. Lincecum, Long 
Point, Texas. 
ALEUTIAN CepHaLopops.—In the winter of 1871-2 at Ilinlink, 
Unalashka, a large number of giant cuttles were stranded at vari- 
ous times. One of these, a species, apparently, of Pinnoctopus, 
measured six feet from tip to tip of the arms, which were much 
mutilated, or about fifty-two inches from the posterior extremity 
of the body to the ends of the arms as they remained. The color 
was white, ocellated with brick-red and the larger suckers measured 
twenty-five inches across. 
A still more remarkable form, however, was subsequently ob- 
tained, perhaps the Onychoteuthis Bergi Licht., one specimen of 
which measured from the posterior end of the body to the muti- 
lated ends of the tentacular arms one hundred and ten inches with 
a body girth of nearly three feet, and weighing nearly two hun- 
dred pounds. Another specimen more mutilated measured eighty 
inches in length. The larger one could hardly have been less than 
ten feet long when perfect, the pen measuring sixty-one inches. 
The buccal mass containing the jaws was about the size of a sm 
orange. The Octopus punctatus Gabb, which occurs at Sitka abun- 
