28 
SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED. 
8 inches, are full of vigour. Two of these illustrate in a 
very interesting manner the subject before us, and by the 
kindness of Mr. Tegetmeier I am able to give facsimiles of 
them, which appeared with an article by him on this book, 
in \hQ Field of March 14th, 1874. Fig. 5 represents a fisher- 
man in a boat out at sea : a gigantic octopus has thrown 
one of its arms over the side of the boat ; the man, who is 
alone, has started forward from the stern of the boat, and 
has succeeded, by means of a large knife attached to a long 
handle, in lopping off the dangerous limb of his enemy. 
As Mr. Tegetmeier says, " From the extreme matter of fact 
manner in which all these engravings are made, and the total 
absence of exaggeration in any other representation, I can- 
not but regard the relative sizes of the man, the boat, and 
the octopus, as correctly given, in which case we have 
evidence of the existence of gigantic cephalopods in 
Japanese waters." The only doubt I have is whether the 
fisherman correctly described his assailant as an octopus, 
and whether it was not a calamary. Fig. 6 is a vivid 
picture of a fishmonger's shop in a market, under the awn- 
ing of which may be seen two arms of a gigantic cuttle hung 
up for sale as food. These are evidently of most unusual 
size, judging from the action of the lookers on ; the one 
to the left, with a tall stand or case on his back, like a 
Parisian cocoa-vendor, is holding out his hand in mute 
astonishment ; whilst the attention of the smaller personage 
in the right-hand corner is directed to the suspended arms 
of the cuttle by the man nearest to him; who is pointing to 
them with upraised hand. In another plate in this most 
interesting work a Japanese mode of fishing for cuttles is 
delineated. A man in a boat is tossing crabs, one at a 
time, into the sea, and when a cuttle rises at the bait he 
spears it with a trident and tosses it into the boat. 
