206 



FOREST AND ST&EAM. 



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OPERATIONS OF THE McCLOUD RIVER 

 (CAL.)FISH HATCHING ESTABLISH- 

 MENT. 



r IVINGSTON STONE, Esq., the indefatigable fish cul- 

 ■*— ' turist, who is now engaged in establishing a govern- 

 ment hatching house on one of the tributaries of the Colum- 

 bia River, in Oregon, sends us from Oregon City, date of Sept. 

 28, a list of the applications made this season for salmon eggs 

 from the McCloud River station of the United States Fish 

 Commission in California. The list will be examined with 

 much interest, as most of the applicants are the leading fish 

 culturists of America." Moreover, the requirements come 

 from no less than nineteen different States, and include not 

 only those of the extreme East and West, and the intermediate 

 ones' lying along the same latitude, but also those of several 

 Southern States, showing how widely the active interest in 

 this important subject is disseminated, as well as the fact that 

 salmon of this variety can be successfully propagated in lati- 

 tudes south of where it had generally been supposed they 

 would thrive. Applications also come from six foreign coun- 

 tries, which is an additional fact of significance and popular 

 interest. The successful stocking of European and sub-tropi- 

 cal rivers with this delicious variety of fish, -which is entirely 

 new to those waters, will be a result demanding much con- 

 gratulation. The experiments have so far been attended with 

 a reasonable degree of success, and a requisition for so large a 

 a number of eggs does not imply a renewal of the same, but a 

 wider extension of operations. On Saturday the steamer Mosel 

 took out the allotment (300,000) for Europe ; they are under 

 charge of Mr. Fred Mather. The total number of eggs asked 

 for by all the applicants (nearly eight millions) is simply 

 enormous, and shows the immense capacity of the McCloud 

 breeding establishment, and the credit belonging to Livingston 

 Stone and the U. S. Fishery Commission in bringing it to 

 such brilliant and useful proportions : 



Applications for Salmon Eggs from the McCloud River Station 

 op the United States 1-ish Commission, California: 



Virginia. 

 Wisconsin. 



Utah. 



North Carolina. 

 Prussia. 

 Germany. 

 Netherlands. 

 Canada. 

 Austra'ia. 

 New Zealand. 

 Total.......... 



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Michigan.— Mr. H. M. Porter at the Pokagon hatcheries, 

 has recently achieved success in his attempt lo produce per- 

 fect egge&pm salmon kept in fresh water. This has hitherto 

 been, thought impossible. Seth Green, in his report last year, 

 asserted that Balmon debarred from salt water never produce 

 eggs. 



Nashua, N. H., Oct,. 7.— The Game and Fish Ciub have 

 stocked two ponds with black bass this season, and one with 

 and-locked salmon, which speaks well for their energy . 



Notice to Sportsmen.— Having received so many communications 

 asking us for information in legard to our six-section bamboo trout, 

 black bass, grilse and salmon rods, we have prepared a circular on the 

 subject, which we Bhall take pleasure In rorwardtng to any address. 

 We keep on hand all grades, the prices of which range from SI5 to$lo0. 

 We put our stamp only on the beet, in order to protect our customers 

 and our reputation, for we are unwilling to sell a poor rod with a false 

 enamel (made by burning and staining to imitate the genuine article) 

 without letting our customers know just what they are getting. 



P, 0. Bqs »,2M,-J4(to Abwsy x Jjibrik, 3$ Maiden Lane, 



fyfnwl IQteforg. 



ANOTHER GIANT CEPHALOPOD. 



St. John's, Newfoundland, October 8, 1877. 



MANY of the readers of Foeest and Stream may re- 

 member that in 1873 I published in the columns of that 

 periodical an account of a gigantic cuttlefish, of which I was 

 fortunate enough to obtain possession. This was the only 

 perfect specimen ever obtained of this extraordinary monster 

 of the deep, the existence of which was previously regarded 

 as fabulous. Its fame is now world-wide. No one has done 

 so much to make known this new species of giant cephalo- 

 poda as Professor "Verrill of Yale College, whose papers on 

 the subject appeared in the American Naturalist, the Ameri- 

 can Journal of Science and Arts, and other periodicals. Mr. 

 Frank Buckland has published a very full account of my 

 specimen in his charming " Log-Book of a Fisherman," page 

 211. In his splendid fish museum at South Kensington, he 

 has placed a wooden model "painted to life, and the exact 

 dimensions of this, the largest cuttlefish that has been cap- 

 tured and brought to public notice." The London Stereo- 

 scopic Company has published photographs of it, copied from 

 those I had taken here, and which you published in Foeest 

 and Stream. Mr. Saville Kent, one of the most eminent of 

 English zoologists, in an elaborate article in the Popular Sci- 

 ence Review, has proposed to name tne new species after me, 

 though many may regard it as a questionable honor to go 

 down to'posterity on the back of a giant celphalopod. The 

 press of America and Britain has -given a wide publicity to 

 my accounts of it, and these have been translated into several 

 of the continental languages. The result has been to estab- 

 lish completely the existence of a gigantic species of cuttlefish, 

 whose headquarters appear to be the waters around New- 

 foundland. The dimensions of the ppecimen of 1 S73 were 



briefly as follows : Tentacles, 24 feet in lacgth ; eight shorter 

 arms six feet iu length and nine inches in circumference at 

 Iheir junction with the head; the body seven feet in length 

 and five in circumference ; the eyes were four inches in di- 

 ameter. Rows of large denticulated suckers covered the 

 inner surface of the shorter arms, while the two long tenta- 

 cles had suckers only at their broadened extremities. Iu the 

 middle of the central mass, from which the arms radiate, was 

 a powerful horny beak, like that of a parrot or hawk, except 

 that the upper jaw shuts into the lower, instead of the re- 

 verse, as in birds. Such was the 'famous Logic Bay specimen 

 of 1873. 



This, however, is now entirely thrown into the shade by a 

 new arrival of much larger dimensions, which I proceed to 

 describe. On Monday morning, Sept. 23, the attention of 

 eome fishermen was attracted to an object near the shore, in 

 the harbor of Catalina, on the north shore of Trinity Bay. It 

 proved to be another giant squid, still alive but much ex- 

 hausted. A heavy equinoctial gale had Bwept the coast, and it 

 is probable that the animal had been driven into the harbor and 

 got aground. It is a peculiariiy of these creatures that they 

 swim backward by ejecting the water through a funnel, the 

 reaction of the surrounding medium driving them along with 

 damaging rapidity ; and when once they touch the shore they 

 begin to pump water from their syphons with great energy, 

 and this forces them farther and farther up the beach. In 

 this way the animal had probably been stranded, and in its 

 desperate efforts had become completely exhausted. When 

 the tide ebbed it was left high and dry upon the beach, 

 and after struggling for a time, and frantically throwing its 

 huge arms, it expired. The fishermen who found it were ad- 

 vised to bring it on at once to St. John's for exhibition, and 

 they arrived on the 24th. The news spread rapidly, and 

 great curiosity was felt to view the illustrious stranger. Gov- 

 ernment granted the use of a large building called the Drill 

 Shed, an4 pa the 09 jaonster WM Stretched, ^trejften,. 



dous still in death." Here he lay in state for three days, and 

 crowds of astonished spectators thronged to gaze at this ex- 

 traordinary "sea-vampire," as Victor Hugo names him. Loud 

 and frequent were the expressions of amazement as group af- 

 ter group of visitors thronged in and gazed in wonder at the 

 immense arms spread out, the huge head with its formidable 

 beak, and the massive body white as a corpse. Lady visitors 

 especially were horror-stricken at the thought of being hugged 

 by those cold clammy arms, which grasp with a death-like 

 tenacity, and glide swiftly round and round the victim, lash- 

 ing themselves to the suckers, whose sharp-teethed edges sink 

 in and seem to drink the very blood. No escape from the 

 terible slimy grasp of the devil-fish. Like live blisters the 

 suckers eat into the flesh, and every struggles of the victim to 

 escape only produces a tightening of the gigantic arms. The 

 imagination can scarcely conceive anything more terrible than 

 the picture of those corpse-like arms gliding in serpentine 

 folds around the body of some human being, dragging 

 him within reach of those terrible mandibles that are ready to 

 rend and devour ; while the cruel watery eyes glare ferocious- 

 ly and strike terror to the heart. Among the gioups of spec- 

 tators such comments as the following were heard : "No use 

 to deny the existence of the sea-serpent after this — this beats 

 him hollow !" "Begorra, thin, the man that would sup with 

 this long-armed fellow would require a mighty long spoon — 

 sure 1" "O, the horrid brute!" No one, however, expressed 

 disappointment, or seemed to begrudge the price of admission. 

 Could the creature have been conveyed in a fresh state to New 

 York, it would have made a sensation and realized a small 

 fortune to the exhibitor. 



I carefully measured the animal, and found it much larger 

 than the Logic Bay specimen. The body is ten feet in length 

 and close on seven feet in circumference at the thickest par', 

 being three feet longer than the one referred to. The two 

 long tentacles are each thirty feet in length ; so that from the 

 extremities of the long arms to the point of the tail it meas- 

 ures forty feet. The tentacles are slender, hut lough as leather, 

 being but five inches in circumference, which tapers to a fine 

 point. This expansion, which is fifteen inches in length, is 

 covered with rows of powerful suckers, the largest being an 

 inch and a quarter in diameter, and all having a cup -like cav- 

 ity, surrounded by a horny denticulated margin. A cone. 

 shaped plug fills the Cavity like a piston, capable of being 

 drawn back and thus creatiug a vacuum, and giving a strong 

 adhesive power to the suckers. Each of the eight short arms 

 is eleven feet in length, being no less than five feet longer 

 than those of the Logic Bay specimen ; while the long tenia, 

 clea exceed those of the former by six feet. The short arms 

 are no less than seventeen inches in circumference at the 

 point of junction with the head, and suggest the idea of enor- 

 mous power, especially when each is armed with 250 wickers 

 —in all 2,000 suckers on the short arms. Like the tentacles, 

 they taper to a tongue-like point. The head, or central mass 

 from which the ten arms radiate, is four and a half feet in cir- 

 cumference. The tail is two feet long and t'wo feet nine inch- 

 es in breadth. Unfortunately in lifting it into their vessel, 

 tne fishermen crushed the. eyes, and the humors all escaped, 

 leaving only an enveloping membrane. The socket of Hie 

 eyes measures eight inches in diameter. They assume, accord - 

 ing to the fishermen, a very ferocious expression when the 

 animal is excited, and are of a dark blue black with an 

 descent border. When taken, the color of the cuttle was a 

 pale flesh, and, in places, a mottled red ; but after death, the- 

 pigment vesicles seem to have disappeared, leaving the body 

 and arms quite white. With a head four feet and a half in 

 circumference, and a ten feet body to work those great arms, 

 which are exceedingly muscular, and dart about with am 

 rapidity, this beast is one of the most formidable, as it cei tain- 

 ly is one of the most repulsive, looking of sea monsters. 



The poor fishermen who were lucky enough to get hold of 

 this "big squid" reaped a golelen harvest by the exhibition, and 

 at the close got a handsome price for the fish. I was in treat y f 1 \t 

 the monster, having been reepjtested by Professor Bairel to secure 

 it for the Smithsonian Museum ; but a speculative New Yoi It- 

 er got wind of it, and distanced all competitors by the high 

 pri e he offered. It has gone to New York, in pickle, prob- 

 ably with the idea of exhibiting it. But I have doubts whether 

 that could be done, except by putting it in alcohol. It is en- 

 tirely cartilaginous, and decomposes very rapidly. I tried to 

 preserve the first specimen in strong brine, but failed. During 

 its exhibition here it eleteriorated much, the more delicate 

 parts shrinking and melting away, and the suckers dropping 

 off. When placed in alcohol the shrinkage is very great. An 

 arm in our local museum, cut from a cuttle in Conception 

 Bay, has lost six feet of its length since being plunged in 

 alcohol. It is greatly to be regretted that the eyes were de- 

 stroyed, for a special interest attaches to them as being more 

 complicated in structure than those of many fishes, and they 

 are besides very large and brilliant. Mrs. Browning was di- 

 rect in her reference, though probably unconsciously so, win rj 

 she commenced "Lord Walter's Wife," with the couplet, 

 " But why do you go? said the Inrly, while both sate under the vew, 

 And her eyes were alive in their depths, as the kiakeus beneath the sea 



blue. 

 The " Kraken," I need hardly say, is the old mythical name 

 for our modern giant cuttles. 



Looking at this giant of the waters, so fully ecmipped for 

 battle with his larger foes, and possessed of such destructive 

 powers, one can imagine the fierce combats that must take 

 place "when Greek meets Greek," when the Giant Cuttle 

 locks some other monster in his great arms, and tears his foe 

 with his formidable beak. Then again, what fearful destruc- 

 tion these monsters, if numerous,muat cause among the *mnH» 

 tr inhabitants oftherl feieUjhey prey, mf 



