GIGANTIC CUTTLE-FISH. 
125 
Professor Steen str up’s Architeuthis , to institute for them the 
generic title of Megaloteuthis , or Griant Calamary, and to fur- 
ther distinguish them, both being of the same species, as 
Megaloteuthis Harveyi , in recognition of the great service to 
science rendered through Mr. Harvey’s steps taken to preserve 
these valuable specimens. To this gentleman, indeed, we are 
indebted for the means of solving and setting at rest for ever 
the long-vexed problem of the existence even of these formidable 
monsters of the deep. 
The accounts published of these colossal Cuttle-fish from New- 
foundland have had the effect of eliminating much additional in- 
formation concerning these formidable molluscs and their allies. 
A correspondent, “ J. M. M.,” to 66 Appleton’s American Journal 
of Science and Art ” for January 31, 1874, relates that a monster 
of the eight-armed order, a Poulpe or Octopus, once seized hold 
of a submarine diver, while at work in the wreck of a sunken 
steamer, off the coast of Florida. The man, a powerful Irish- 
man, was quite paralysed in its grasp, and, to use his own lan- 
guage, felt both his armour and himself 66 being cracked into a 
jelly.” It seems he was just being brought to the surface, 
otherwise the creature would have killed him, for he was so 
suffering from the terrible embrace that he could move no part 
of himself ; when dragged into the raft from which he had 
descended, and finally released, he fainted away. The men on 
the raft seized the animal by one of its arms and tried to pull 
it off, but were unable to overcome the adhesive power of a 
single sucker. They at last succeeded in removing the monster 
by dealing it a heavy blow across the sac which contains the 
stomach. This sac was further described as standing up stiffly 
above the eyes, which projected like lobster’s eyes and gleamed 
like fire, altogether a frightful apparition to encounter. The 
writer adds, that the Italian fishermen of San Francisco who 
frequent the Farallone Islands, not unfrequently take these 
devil-fish, from 8 to 10 ft. across their extended tentacles. 
Returning to the true Cuttles or Calamaries, a huge monster,, 
evidently of this tribe, not long since seized a fishing-boat,, 
near the village of Kononoti, Japan (see u Nature,” June 5, 
1873). The boatmen at length succeeded in despatching it by 
repeated blows. The creature’s body, which was exhibited in a 
house near the temple at Asaka, measured 16 ft., and the 
arms nearly 5 ft. 
Having satisfactorily established the existence of these 
monarchs of the ocean, it now remains for science to elucidate 
their habits and social economy. The facilities for this, how- 
ever, are at present not very extensive. The fact of many indi- 
viduals having made their appearance within a limited area, 
and at intervals following with marked closeness upon one 
