CUTTLE FISH. 



707 



however, swanows the hook with the bait, it still requires 

 some dexterity to catch him ; the line must not be jerked pre- 

 maturely ; he must be given time enough to swallow it well, 

 then a good jerk fixes the point of the hook, and the sport 

 commences for everybody but the shark. In hauling him in 

 it is not safe to trust only to the hook ; his struggles are so 

 violent and his strength is so great that he may break away 

 Being hauled therefore to the surface, the next thing is to get 

 the noose of another rope round his body near the tail, or 

 round one of his pectoral fins. This done he may be safely 

 hauled on board, but even then he cannot be approached with- 

 out danger, since a blow from his tail may prove fatal. In 

 catching sharks off the coast of Nantucket, in smacks, the 

 fishermen haul them to the surface at the side of the boat, 

 and then kill them with blows on the head before taking them 

 on board. 



Among the monsters of the deep, none is more terrific in 

 appearance than the cuttle fish. Terrible stories have been 

 told of the magnitude of these sea monsters. Under the name 

 of the Kraken marvelous tales were told of its destruction of 

 ships, one of them, it being said, embracing a three-masted 

 ship in its gigantic arms. Our illustration, however, shows 

 a well authenticated case of the capture of an enormous cuttle fish. 

 An account of the 58 pture was made to the French Academy 

 of Sciences by Lieutenant Bayer, the commander of the French 

 corvette Alecton, who made the capture, and M. Sabin Berthe- 

 lot, the French Consul at the Canary Islands. While on her 

 course between Teneriffe and Madeira, the Alecton fell in with 

 a large cuttle fish measuring about fifty feet in length, without 

 counting its eight arms, covered with suckers. Its head, its 

 largest part, measured about twenty feet in circumference ; its 

 tail consisted of two fleshy lobes or fins. Its weight was esti- 

 caated at 4,000 pounds. Its color was brickish red, and its 

 frnJb was soft and glutinous. The shots which were fired a! 



