SEPIAD^. — CUTTLE. 
169 
day, on the coast of Normandy, state that the polypus, 
which they call chatrou, is a most formidable enemy to 
swimmers and divers, for when it has embraced any of 
the limbs with its tentacles, it adheres with such tena- 
city, that it is quite impossible for a person to disengage 
himself, or to move any of his limbs. 
A friend told me, that on his voyage to. Ceylon, many 
years ago, he used to beguile the time by fishing, and 
once he caught a huge cephalopod. When it was hauled 
on board, it stuck and clung with such tenacity to the 
deck and ropes, that it could not be pulled oflf, and was 
at last cut to pieces with a hatchet. 
M. Flourens communicated to the French Academy 
an account of an enormous specimen which was seen by 
Lieutenant Bouger, forty leagues north of Teneriffe. It 
appeared to be about twelve to fifteen metres in length 
(from thirty-one to forty-six feet) , its body of a reddish 
colour, and shaped like a horn. The widest part was 
about two yards in diameter. M. Moquin-Tandon ob- 
serves that the fishermen of the Canaries often met with 
these huge monsters, exceeding one or even two yards 
in length, but they were afraid to attack them.* 
A sailor who had seen some very large ones at Ber- 
muda, and had heard of people being attacked by them 
whilst bathing, told me that he had ever after felt shy of 
bathing in the sea, and that even the thoughts of them 
made him shudder. 
The Norwegian Kraken, Kraxen, or Krabben, was 
held to belong to the Cephalopods, and old Eric Pont- 
oppidan, a Norw^egian bishop, describes it as an animal, 
the largest in creation, whose body rises above the 
surface of the water like a mountain, and its arms like 
* ‘ Intellectual Observer,’ vol. i. pp. 82-83. 
