THE KRAKEN, 
41 
These are statements made by men who, by their intelli- 
gence, character, and position, are entitled to respect and 
credence ; and whose evidence would be accepted without 
question or hesitation in any court of law. There is, more- 
over, a remarkable coincidence of particulars in their several 
accounts, which gives great Importance to their combined 
testimony. 
But, fortunately, we are not left dependent on docu- 
mentary evidence alone, nor with the option of accepting 
or rejecting, as caprice or prejudice may prompt us, the 
narratives of those who have told us they have seen what 
we have not. Portions of cuttles of extraordinary size are 
preserved in several European museums. In the collection 
of the Faculty of Sciences at Montpellier is one six feet 
long, taken by fishermen at Cette, which Professor Steen- 
strup has identified as 07nniastrephes pteropiis. One of the 
same species, which was formerly in the possession of M. 
Eschricht, who received it from Marseilles, may be seen in 
the museum at Copenhagen. The body of another, 
analogous to these, is exhibited in the Museum of Trieste : 
it was taken on the coast of Dalmatia, At the meeting of 
the British Association at Plymouth in 1 841, Colonel Smith 
exhibited drawings of the beak and other parts of a very 
large calamary preserved at Haarlem ; and M. P. Harting, 
in i860, described in the Memoirs of the Royal Scientific 
Academy of Amsterdam portions of two extant in other 
collections in Holland, one of which he believes to be Steen- 
strup's Architeuthis dux, a species which he regards as 
identical with Ommastrephes todarus of D'Orbigny. 
Still there remained a residuum of doubt in the minds of 
naturalists and the public concerning the existence of 
gigantic cuttles until, towards the close of the year 1873, 
two specimens were encountered on the coast of New- 
