SCIENTIFIC SUMMARY. 
191 
dead, but completely disabled. They were seen chiefly between 44° and 44° 
SO' N. lat., and between 49° 30' and 49° 50' W. Long. From twenty-five to 
thirty specimens were said to have been secured by the fleet from Gloucester, 
Mass., and as many more were probably obtained by the vessels from other 
places. They were cut up as bait for codfish. Capt. Collins himself was in 
command of the schooner Howard, which secured five squids to her own 
share. They were mostly from ten to fifteen feet long, exclusive of the 
arms, arid averaged eighteen inches in diameter. The arms were generally 
mutilated, the portions left being usually three or four feet long, and, at the 
base, almost as thick as a man’s thigh. One specimen, when cut up, was 
packed into a large hogshead-cask holding about 75 gallons, which it filled. 
This cask would hold 700 pounds of codfish, and as the specific gravity of the 
Architeuthis is almost equal to that of codfish, we may take this as an 
approximate indication of the weight of one of these gigantic Cephalopods. 
Allowing for the lost parts of the arms, this specimen would probably, when 
entire, have weighed about 1000 pounds ; previous estimates are too high. 
Professor Verrill refers to other vessels which secured portions of the 
valuable supply of bait furnished by these great squids, and states that the 
E. R. Nickerson, Capt. McDonald, obtained one which had its arms, and was 
not quite dead, so that it was harpooned. Its tentacular arms were thirty 
feet long. The schooner Tragabigzanda secured three in one afternoon ; 
they were from eight to twelve feet long, not including the arms. Other 
fishermen confirm these statements, and some of them add that the 1 big 
squids’ were common during the same season at the 1 Flemish Cap,’ a bank 
some distance north-west of the Grand Banks. 
With regard to the cause of this remarkable mortality among these great 
Cephalopods, Professor Verrill suggests that it may have been due to some 
disease epidemic among them, or to an unusual prevalence of deadly parasites 
or other enemies. He indicates, however, as a point worthy of notice, that 
they were observed at the same season of the year when most of the speci- 
mens have been found on the shores of Newfoundland. This season may, 
perhaps, be immediately subsequent to the period of reproduction, when the 
animals would probably be so much weakened as to succumb easily to para- 
sites, disease, or any other unfavourable conditions. 
Disappearance of the muscles of larvce in the pupce of Dipterous Insects. — 
It is well known that many of the internal organs of the larvae of insects 
melt away, as it were, when the insect passes into the pupa state, so that the 
pupa may not unaptly be likened to a second egg in which new organs are 
produced from a formative fluid. M. Viallanes has communicated to the 
French Academy ( Comptes Rendus, February 21) an interesting description 
of his observations on the disappearance of the larval muscles in the pupae of 
Diptera, founded upon the examination of more than 400 transverse sections 
of larvae and pupae. The primitive bundles enclosed in their sarcolemma 
exhibit nuclei, some of which are situated just within the sarcolemma, while 
others are in the midst of the contractile substances of the muscle. From 
the first day of pupal life the primitive bundles begin to disappear, and 
this disappearance takes place in two modes, — 
1. By the excessive activity and proliferation of the nuclei; 
2. By their degeneration and death. 
In the first mode the sarcolemma speedily vanishes, the contractile sub- 
