120 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
remarkable tentacle, may be briefly stated as follows : — On 
October 26, 1873, while two fishermen from St. John’s were 
plying their vocation off the eastern end of Grreat Belle Island, 
Conception Bay, they descried, at a short distance from them, 
a dark shapeless mass floating in the water. Concluding that 
it was a bale of goods, possibly a portion of the cargo of some 
wrecked vessel, the men rowed up to it, anticipating a valuable 
prize, and one of them struck the object with his boat-hook. In 
an instant the dark mass became animated, and opening out like 
a huge umbrella, displayed to view a pair of prominent ghastly 
green eyes of enormous size, which glared at them with apparent 
ferocity, its huge parrot-like beak at the same time opening in a 
savage and threatening manner. The men were so terrified by the 
terrible apparition that for a moment they were unable to stir, 
and before they could recover their presence of mind sufficiently 
to endeavour to make their escape, the monster, now but a few 
feet from the boat, shot out from around it several long arms 
of corpse-like fleshiness, and grappling for the boat, sought to 
envelop it in their livid folds. Two of these reached the craft, 
and in consequence of its greater length, one went completely 
over and beyond it. At this moment, one of the men, by 
name Theophilus Picot, fortunately recovered from his fright, 
and seizing a hatchet that happened to be on board, succeeded 
by a desperate effort in severing both these arms. On finding 
itself wounded, the animal moved off backwards, at the same 
time darkening the water with its inky emissions, and presently 
became lost to sight beneath the surface of the waves. The 
amputated arms which were left in the boat as trophies of the 
terrible encounter, were brought to St. John’s, and, through the 
energy of Mr. Harvey, the longer one was secured for the 
museum, the shorter of the two having, unfortunately, been de- 
stroyed before its value was known. The same gentleman, who 
was the first to examine and describe this severed limb, found 
that it measured no less than 1 9 ft. ; a large portion, some 
6 ft., had been destroyed before Mr. Harvey rescued it, and the 
fishermen being of opinion that at least 10 more were left 
attached to the monster’s body, the total length must have 
been very little short of 40 ft. The description of this limb 
by the Rev. Mr. Harvey entirely bears out his own opinion 
that it was one of the two longer arms or tentacula of a huge 
Calamary, and is thus given: — “It measured 19 ft., is of a 
pale pink colour, entirely cartilaginous, tough and pliant as 
leather, and very strong. It is but 3J in. in circuin- 
ference, except towards the extremity, where it broadens like 
an oar to 6 in., and then tapers to a pretty fine point ; the 
under surface of the extremity is covered with suckers to the 
very point. At the extreme end there is a cluster of small 
