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THE GIANT CUTTLE-FISHES OF NEWFOUNDLAND 
AND THE COMMON SQUIDS OF THE NEW 
ENGLAND COAST. 
BY PROFESSOR A. E. VERRILL. 
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Tue various accounts of the appearance and capture of several 
gigantic cuttle-fishes or “squids” on the coast of Newfoundland, 
that have recently been published in the newspapers, have exci- 
ted an unusual interest in animals of this kind. I have been so 
fortunate as to obtain for examination and description the jaw of 
the huge specimen found floating at the surface on the Grand Banks 
in 1871, and referred to by Dr. Packard in his interesting article 
in a former number of the NATURALIST (vol. vii, No. 2, p. 91), 
and also the jaws. and two of the large suckers of a gigantic spec- 
imen recently obtained in Bonavista Bay, Newfoundland,* and 
parts of another smaller, specimen, captured in .December near 
St. John. In a future article I propose to describe and figure 
these remarkable specimens, and will, therefore, at present, merely 
state that these remains show that two distinct kinds of gigantic 
squids exist on the coast of Newfoundland. One of these, rep- 
resented by the jaw obtained in 1871, is a comparatively elon- ` 
gated species, having, according to the measurements made, a 
body about fifteen feet long and nineteen inches in diameter 
with the ordinary arms about ten feet in length and seven inalies 
in diameter (the two long extensile arms of unknown length). 
This is probably the Architeuthis monachus of Steenstrup, as 
stated by Dr. Packard. The other is represented by the jaws and 
suckers in my. possession and by one of the long extensile arms 
preserved in the museum at St. John, Newfoundland, which was 
cut off from the individual that attacked the boat, as described 
in the February number of the Narturatist, p. 120. Of this, I 
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lso have some of the suckers. Possibly a specimen, captured at ` 
‘Coombs Cove, was ‘the same indiyidual that attacked the boat, 
or, when so ap ‘it had lost one of its long arms, and the one 
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*For th i eci I indebted to Prof. Baird, of the Smithsonian In- 
(167) 
