126 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
another, would seem to indicate that they are gregarious, and 
in this respect participate in a habit dominant with the 
majority of their less pretentious congeners. In the common 
Squid, Loligo , the number of ova deposited by the female is 
something astounding, having been computed by Bohadsch at 
no less than 40,000 ! If anything approaching such a degree 
of prolificness obtains in these giants of their race, it is a 
matter of wonder that more has not been seen of them. 
Against this, however, it may be argued that, like the members 
of the whale tribe, they usually affect the open ocean, and only 
approach the land when driven by stress of wind or tide. 
Unlike the whales, a shoal of these might pass a ship un- 
noticed, having no occasion to raise the surface of their bodies 
above the level of the water to take in atmospheric air, as with 
the former. The great speed, moreover, with which all mem- 
bers of this group shoot through the medium they inhabit, 
aided by their powerful vision, would enable them to avoid 
with ease a threatened danger in the form of an approaching 
ship. Associated with this aspect, it is also worthy of note that 
in the majority of instances the examples encountered have 
been dead, or in a mutilated or exhausted state. 
The question of the food upon which these monsters live has 
not yet been determined ; though it in all probability consists 
principally of living fish, in common with most of their pre- 
dacious race. The destruction they work among the finny 
tribes in this case must, on account of their enormous size, be 
very great ; but, as throughout the scale of nature we find one 
tribe warring upon another and finally subservient for the sup- 
port of one still more powerful, we shall find that these giant 
Calamaries are themselves an easy prey to other tenants of the 
deep. The whales, in fact, with which they have been compared 
in size, are their most formidable and implacable foes, and pro- 
bably the only animals existing who could oppose these monsters 
with any prospect of success in their native element. Our 
remarks in this case are, of course, restricted to the toothed 
whales, or Physeteridce , and with these we have abundant evi- 
dence to show that the colossal cephalopods constitute a favourite 
diet. 
A mate of a whaling vessel stated to the writer of the com- 
munication to “ Appleton’s Journal,” already quoted, that there 
were enormous Squids in the equatorial seas which furnished 
food to the sperm-whales, and that he had on one occasion seen 
an arm of one, 30 ft. long, depending from the mouth of a whale 
that seemed sick. Captain Francis Post, Captain E. E. Smith, 
and other witnesses, also supply testimony to the same effect ; 
and one of these declared having seen a whale with an arm of 
a Cuttle-fish no less than 40 ft. in length. Among others, Mr. 
