478 TAE VARIOUS EXPLANATIONS. [The 22d.] 
“When swimming, these squids propel themselves backwards by 
the outrush of a stream of water from a tube pointed in a direction 
contrary to that in which the animal is proceeding. The tail part, 
therefore, goes in advance, and the body tapers towards this, 
almost to a blunt point. At a short distance from the actual ex- 
tremity two flat fins project from the body, one on each side, so 
that this end of the squid’s body somewhat resembles in shape 
the government “broad arrow’. It is a habit of these squids, the 
small species of which are met with in some localities in teeming 
abundance, to swim on the smooth surface of the water in hot 
and calm weather. The arrow-headed tail is then raised out of 
water, to a height which in a large individual might be three 
feet. or more; and, as it precedes the rest of the body, moving at 
the rate of several miles an hour, it of course looks, to a person 
who has never heard of an animal going tail first at such a speed, 
like the creature’s head. The appearance of this “head” varies in 
accordance with the lateral fins being seen in profile or in broad 
expanse. ‘The elongated, tubular-looking body gives the idea of the 
neck to which the “head” is attached; the eight arms trailing 
behind (the tentacles are always coiled away and concealed) supply 
the supposed mane floating on each side; the undulating motion 
in swimming, as the water is alternately drawn in and expelled, 
accords with the description, and the excurrent stream pouring 
aft from the locomotor tube, causes a long swirl and swell to be 
left im the animal’s wake, which, as I have often seen, may 
easily be mistaken for an indefinite prolongation of its body. The 
eyes are very large and prominent, and the general tone of colour 
varies through every tint of brown, purple, pink, and grey, as 
the creature is more or less excited, and the pigmentary matter 
circulates with more or less vigour through the curiously moving cells.” 
“Here we have the “long marine animal” with “two fins on the 
forepart of the body near the head’, the “boiling of the water’, 
the “moving in undulations’, the “body round, and of a dark 
colour’, the “waving motion in the water behind the animal’, 
from which the witnesses concluded that “part of the body was 
concealed under water’, the “head raised, but the lower part not 
visible’, the “sharp snout’’, the “smooth skin’, and the appearance 
described by Mr. William Knudtzon, and Candidatus Theologiae 
Bochlum, of “the head being long and small in proportion to the 
throat, the latter appearmg much greater than the former”, which 
caused them to think “it was probably furnished with a mane’. 
