168 
EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 
Edinburgh^ of a huge cuttle-fisb, which was thrown on 
shore somewhere on the Shetland Isles^ its body measur- 
ing nine feet_, and its arms sixteen feet in length.* Very 
large specimens are found in the Pacific, and also in the 
Indian seas, and the latter are said to seize canoes, and 
drag them down ; and woe betide the unfortunate bather 
should he happen to be taken in the grasp of one of 
these monsters ; and on the authority of Sir Grenville 
Temple, in Beale^s ^History of the Sperm Whale, ^ an 
anecdote is given, showing what happened in the Medi- 
terranean to a Sardinian captain, who was bathing at 
Jerbeh. He felt one of his feet in the grasp of one of 
one of these animals, and tried with his other foot to 
disengage himself, but his limb was immediately seized 
by another of the monstePs arms. He then endeavoured 
with his hands to free himself, bat these also in succes- 
sion were firmly grasped by the polypus, and the poor 
man was shortly found drowned, with all his limbs firmly 
bound together by the twining arms of the fish ; and it is 
extraordinary, that where this happened, the water was 
scarcely four feet deep. Fredol, in ^ Le Monde de la Mer,’ 
states that the famous diver Piscinola, who at the desire 
of the Emperor Frederick II., dived in the Straits of 
Messina, saw, with much alarm, enormous poulps at- 
tached to the rocks, their arms several yards long, quite 
capable of destroying a man. 
Pliny gives a descriptionf of the dangerous powers of 
the polypus for destroying a human being in the water ; 
embracing his body, it counteracts his struggles, and 
draws him under with its feelers, and its numerous 
suckers. It is said that the fishermen at the present 
* ‘ Life in Normandy,’ notes. — D.D. 
f Pliny, Nat. Hist. vol. ii. bk. ix. chap. 48, and note. 
