64 
NATURE OF THE 
But this last we must imagine a mere pigmy, when we 
consider the enormous dimensions of the one spoken of 
by Dr. Schewediawer, in the Phil. Trans, vol. Ixxiii. 
p. 226, whose tentaculum or limb measured twenty- 
seven feet in length ; but let the Doctor speak for himself. 
“ One of the gentlemen,” says he, ** who was so kind as 
to communicate to me his observations on this subject 
(ambergris) also, ten years ago, hooked a spermaceti whale 
that had in its mouth a tentaculum of the sepia octo- 
podia nearly twenty-seven feet long ! This did not appear 
its whole length, for one end was corroded by digestion, 
so that, in its natural state, it may have been a great 
deal longer. When we consider/’ says the Doctor, ** the 
enormous bulk of the tentaculum here spoken of, we 
shall cease to wonder at the common saying of the 
fishermen, that the cuttle-fish is the largest fish of the 
ocean.” 
In Todd’s Cyclopaedia of Anatomy, p. 529, treating 
of cephalopoda, in an admirable paper by Mr. Owen, it 
states, that ** the natives of the Polynesian Islands, who 
dive for shell-fish, have a well-founded dread and abhor- 
rence of these formidable cephalopods, and one cannot 
feel surprised that their fears should have perhaps exag- 
gerated their dimensions and destructive attributes.” 
The same learned writer, after having beautifully 
described another animal of this order, observes—** Let 
the reader picture to himself the projecting margin of the 
horny hook developed into a long-curved, sharp-pointed 
claw, and these weapons clustered at the expanded ter- 
minations of the tentacles and arranged in a double. 
