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GIANT SQUID (new to Science) AT SCARBOROUGH. 
W. J. CLARKE. 
In the early morning of January 14th, 1933, the writer received 
a message that a large Shark had washed ashore in the South 
Bay at Scarborough. On the way down to view it, it grew 
into a Whale, but on arrival the mysterious creature was 
found to be an immense Squid. Someone had cut off the tips 
of the two longest tentacles and taken them away, the total 
length of what was left was 17 ft. 5 in. The length of the 
body from the front edge of the mantle to the tip of the tail 
Architeuthis Clarkei at Scarborough. 
was 5 ft. 8-|- in., while the length of each short arm was 7 ft. 1 in. 
The colour was chestnut brown, darker on the back, paler 
beneath, the insides of the arms and the stalked suckers were 
white. Realising the extreme rarity of these huge 
Cephalopods, the writer made arrangements for the creature 
to be sent to the Natural History Museum at South Kensington. 
There it duly arrived and a search was at once instituted for 
the missing portions of the tentacles. A wireless appeal for 
their return was broadcast, and it was eventually discovered 
that they had been taken away by a local fisherman who did 
not know what to do with them and who eventually dropped 
them into one of the offal barrels on the Fish Market. From 
here they went to a manure factory at Hull, where, on enquiry, 
it was learned that they had been seen, but the enquiry for 
them had not come in time and so they were converted into 
fertilizer. The length of the portions so lost was estimated 
at about 18 in. off each tentacle, including all the suckers. 
1933 July 1 
