GIGANTIC CUTTLE-FISH. 
117 
mated to weigh 100 lbs., and a large portion was secured and 
deposited in the gallery of comparative anatomy of the Paris 
Museum. 
A species of the uncinated Calamaries (tentacles provided 
with hooks as well as suckers ), Enoploteuthis unguiculata , the 
mutilated body of which was found floating in the South Seas 
by Banks and Solander, during Cook’s second voyage, was for- 
warded to the Museum of the Boyal College of Surgeons, 
London, and there examined by Prof. Owen ; it was estimated 
by him to have been fully 6 ft. long when perfect. The 
natives of the Polynesian Isles, who dive for shell-fish, are 
stated to have a well-founded dread of this formidable species. 
The largest Calamary of which a complete figure and de- 
scription has been published, occurs in De Ferussac and 
D’Orbigny’s magnificent monograph of the Acetabulated Cepha- 
lopoda, 1834, and is named Ommastrephes giganteus. The total 
length of this animal is given as rather less than 4 ft. 
In 1841 a Colonel Smith communicated to the second meeting 
of the British Association, held at Plymouth, a description 
of several fragments of a gigantic Cuttle-fish preserved in the 
Museum of Haarlem. 
At the reunion of Scandinavian naturalists at Copenhagen, 
in the year 1847, Professor Steenstrup contributed a record of 
two gigantic cephalopods, captured in the years 1639 and 1790, 
on the coasts of Zeeland, the first of which has been already 
alluded to; and later on, in 1856, supplemented these observa- 
tions with some remarks of high interest upon another specimen 
found at the Skag, Jutland, in the year 1854. This last 
example was cut to pieces by the fishermen to bait their lines, 
the dismembered body furnishing many barrow-loads, or in its 
entire condition, according to some writers, filling a large cart. 
The pharynx of this monster, which with its contained beak, 
equalled in size an infant’s head, was unfortunately the only 
portion of the animal preserved. This, however, with the record 
of the two examples from the neighbouring island of Zeeland 
just mentioned, supplied Professor Steenstrup with material for 
the institution of his new genus Architeuthis ; he, according to 
Crosse and Fischer, bestowing upon the species of which the 
pharynx was preserved the title of Architeuthis dux , and upon 
that represented by the two examples recorded as captured in 
the years 1639 and 1790, the provisional one of Architeuthis 
monachus. 
M. P. Harting publishes, in the “ Memoirs of the Royal Aca- 
demy of Amersterdam for 1860,” a description with figures of 
various portions of some very large cephalopods contained 
in the museum of that town ; the beak of one of these, mea- 
suring nearly five inches in length, including the muscular 
