THE KRAKEN. 
47 
tentacular sucker I inch ; number of suckers on each of 
the shorter arms 250. 
The appearance of so many of these great squids on 
the shores of Newfoundland during the term of seven years, 
and after so long a period of popular uncertainty as to 
their very existence had previously elapsed, might lead one 
to suppose that the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean 
which wash the north-eastern coasts of the American Con- 
tinent were, at any rate, temporarily, their principal habitat, 
especially as a smaller member of their family, Omma- 
strephes sagittaitis, is there found in such extraordinary 
numbers that it furnishes the greater part of the bait used 
in the Newfoundland cod fisheries. But that they are by 
no means confined to this locality is proved by recent 
instances, as well as by those already cited. 
Dr. F. Hilgendorf records * observations of a huge squid 
exhibited for money at Yedo, Japan, in 1873, and of another 
of similar size, which he saw exposed for sale in the Yedo 
fish market. 
When the French expedition was sent to the Island of 
St. Paul, in 1874, for the purpose of observing the transit 
of Venus, which occurred on the 9th of December in that 
year, it was fortunately accompanied by an able zoologist, 
M. Ch. Velain. He reports f that on the 2nd of November 
a tidal wave cast upon the north shore of the island a great 
calamary which measured in total length nearly 23 feet, 
namely : length of body 7 feet ; length of tentacles 16 feet. 
There are several points of interest connected with its 
generic characters, and M. Velain's grounds for regard- 
ing it as being of a previously unknown species, but they 
* ' Sitzungsberichte der Gesellschaft naturforschenden Freunde zu 
Berlin,' pp. 65-67, quoted by Professor Owen, op. cit. 
t * Comptes Rendus,' t. 80, 1875, p. 998. 
