*

GIANT CALAMARY

Caught by the Crew of the French Steamer Alecton , Nov. 1S61.

Page 124 .

Monsters of the Sea.

SURPRISED BY AN OCTOPUS.

Page 106.

tTbomas iRelson anb Sons,

LONDON , EDINBURGH , iMi? W YORK.

Monsters

of the Sea

Legendary and Authentic.

By

JOHN GIBSON,

Author of ‘ e Chips from the Earth's Crust f “ Science Gleanings
in Many Fields etc.

ITH jSlXTEEN JLLUSTRATIONS.

bonbon :

T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW.

EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.

1887.

I

preface.

In ancient times little was known of the sea and its
inhabitants. A wide field was thus presented for the
play of the imagination, and so the waste of waters
came to be peopled with a host of fanciful monsters.
The better knowledge of modem times, while it has
swept the most of this away, and reduced the remainder
to truthful proportions, has at the same time made
known the existence in the sea of animals much more
truly wonderful than any the ancients ever imagined.

The belief in a huge sea-serpent is of great antiquity;
but modern science has shown that tropical oceans
abound in sea-serpents, small indeed for the most part,
but of wondrous structure and armed with the most
deadly poison. In giving an account in the following
pages of those genuine sea-monsters, as well as of the
much larger but non-poisonous snakes that frequent
the rivers of Brazil, notice is also taken of the appear-
ances that have led to the supposition that in the ocean
at the present day a Great Sea-Serpent exists. It is
strange that a creature so large as this is alleged to be
should come at intervals under man’s observation and
yet for ever elude his grasp. Its capture has yet to

X

PREFACE.

be made, and until this is effected the existence of such
a creature may well be doubted. In the meantime,
considerable interest attaches to the literature which
has gathered round the mythical monster, a summary
of which is given in the following pages.

The octopus was known to the dwellers by the
Mediterranean, and it seems to have been the founda-
tion on which more than one of their legendary sea-
monsters were formed. Nor is this surprising, in view
of the curious forms and no less curious habits of the
octopus and its allies, the squid and the cuttle-fish.
Their sac-like bodies, encircled at the upper end with
eight or ten arms covered with suckers, their mode of
progression by means of a stream of water ejected
from their bodies, and their ink-bag — that most curious
organ of defence — were well calculated to strike the
imagination. It is easy thus to see how the Lernaean
Hydra grew nut of the Mediterranean octopus.

Our knowledge of these creatures has greatly in-
creased of late years. The octopus is now known to
attain formidable dimensions, while cuttle-fishes have
been captured off the coast of Newfoundland measur-
ing about sixty feet in length — a discovery which has
rendered it no longer difficult to believe that the
legendary kraken of the Norwegian coast was simply
an exaggerated cuttle-fish. The habits, structure, and
uses of these interesting molluscs are described in the
following pages in popular language.

@f0nt£nt0,

I. SEA-SNAKES,

II. pontoppidan’s sea-serpent,

III. SCOTTISH AND AMERICAN SEA-SERPENTS,

iv. the “d^edalus” sea-serpent,

V. RECENT sea-serpents,

VI. THE LEGENDARY KRAKEN,

VII. THE CUTTLE-FISH OR SEPIA,

VIII. THE OCTOPUS,

IX. THE CALAMARY OR SQUID,

X. GIANT CUTTLE-FISHES,

15

21

32

45

56

79

S7

95

118

125

JESist of sEIluot rations,

Giant Calamary caught by the Crew of the French Steamer Alecton, Novem-
ber 30, 1861, . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece

Surprised by an Octopus, . . . . . . . . . . Vignette

Legendary Sea-Serpent, . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Pontoppidan’s Sea-Serpent, . . . . . . . . . . 29

The American Sea-Serpent, . . . . . . . c . . 37

The Sea-Serpent, when first seen from H.M. Ship Dcedalus , . . . . 47

The Sea-Serpent passing under the Stern of the DcedciluSy . . . . 51

Monstrous Sea-weed discovered by the Boats of the French Ship Pekin , near

Moulmein, in 1848, . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

The Sea-Serpent and Sperm Whale, as seen from the Pauline , . . . . 63

The Sea-Serpent in the Mediterranean, as seen from H.M Yacht Osborne (the

Row of Fins as seen at first), . . . . . . . . . . 69

The Sea-Serpent in the Mediterranean, as seen from H. M. Yacht Osborne (the

Head and Flippers), . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

The Kraken, as seen by the Eye of Imagination, . . . . . . 83

Common Cuttle-Fish.— Calamary (Squid)— Upper and Under Sides, . . 89

The Octopus and its Prey, . . . . . . . . . . 99

Head, Arms, and Tentacles of Gigantic Calamary, from Logie Bay, New-
foundland, . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Giant Calamary afloat, . . . . . . . . . . 135

MONSTERS OF THE SEA.

CHAPTER I.

SEA-SNAKES.

Although snakes are for the most part land animals,
there are few of them that cannot take if necessary
to the water. Thus the cobra has been observed
many miles from land crossing an arm of the sea.
There are other snakes that may be described as am-
phibious, which, like the great anaconda of South
America, inhabit the banks of streams, and pass in
and out of the water like otters. These, during
heavy floods in such rivers as the Amazon and the
Plate, are often carried out to sea, where they are
apt to be mistaken for true sea-serpents.

A year or two ago the captain of the steam-ship
Mexico stated that he had passed through a tangled

16

SEA-SNAKES .

mass of snakes at the entrance to the Gulf of
Mexico. The ship was said to have been more than
an hour in passing them. “ They were of all sizes,
from the ordinary green water-snake of two feet long
to monsters of fourteen or fifteen feet in length.”
These were most probably land-snakes that had been
carried out to sea by river floods; and amphibious
forms thirty feet in length, like the anaconda, might
thus be found in the waters of the ocean.

This is probably the explanation of an incident
noted in the log-book of a ship which at the time
was in the neighbourhood of the Azores. The ship,
according to the log, was becalmed, when a very large
snake passed. It appeared to be about sixteen or
eighteen feet in length, and three or four feet in cir-
cumference ; the back of a lightish colour, and the
belly yellow. This specimen had probably been car-
ried out to sea by one of the great rivers of South
America, and thence conveyed by the Gulf Stream
to the spot where it was seen.

There are, however, a large number of true water-
snakes— snakes which are born, live, and die in the
water. Some of these are entirely fresh-water forms,
others as exclusively marine. These two kinds differ
very much from each other. In fresh-water snakes
the tail is round and tapering, as in the land forms.

(37)

SEA-SNAKES.

17

The sea-snakes, on the contrary, have the end of their
tail flattened out like a paddle — an arrangement that
assists them greatly in making swift way through the
water. Further, fresh-water snakes are all harmless,
in no case possessing poison-fangs; while the sea-
snakes are the most venomous of all the poisonous
serpents.

The sea-snakes are inhabitants of the tropical seas
of the eastern hemisphere, being specially abundant
in the Indian Ocean. There are different kinds of
them known, most of them adorned with bright col-
ours and elegant patterns. They differ considerably
in size, the largest, so far as is known, not exceeding
fourteen feet in length, while most of the species are
not bigger than the common viper.

They are interesting and beautiful objects in the
water, their movements being thus described by a
recent writer : — “ Swimming and diving with equal
facility, flashing into sight and disappearing again in
twos or scores, or in larger shoals, pursuing fish,
many of them of bright colouring, they offer constant
amusement to the beholder. Sometimes, when the
sailors are throwing their nets, they disappear beneath
the waves, and are no longer seen for half an hour
or more; when presently, far away from the spot
where they vanished so suddenly, up they come to

(37) o

18

SEA-SNAKES .

the surface again, to sport once more, or to take in
a fresh supply of air.”

Though timid creatures, seeking ever to avoid man,
sea-serpents are greatly dreaded by fishermen in the
seas in which they occur. And not without cause ;
for they often get entangled in the nets, and so are
conveyed with the draught of fishes into the boat,
where, unnoticed, they may be handled or trampled
upon, and thus tempted to use their fangs. These
fangs are supplied with what is probably the dead-
liest of all snake poisons, for they seem to be the only
serpents whose bite is fatal to other venomous snakes.

“ One of my earliest recollections in Ceylon,” says a
recent traveller, “ is that of a poor young officer of the
surveying schooner Wolf. He handled a sea-snake,
which had been taken up by the dredging-net, and
was bitten. Although entreated by the surgeon to
submit to excision of the portion of his hand on
which the bite had been inflicted, he refused, sharing
as he did in the then popular belief of the harmless-
ness of sea-serpents. In a few hours, however, he
was dead.”

So minute is the wound made by these snakes
that it is often nearly painless, and therefore apt to
be overlooked. Sir Joseph Fayrer gives several in-
stances of this. A captain, while bathing in a tidal

SEA-SNAKES .

19

river, felt what he supposed was the pinch of a crab
on his foot, but took no notice of it ; and after dress-
ing, he called on some friends, being to all appearance
in his usual health. In about two hours he felt strange
symptoms of suffocation, enlargement of the tongue,
and rigidity of the muscles. Next morning decided
symptoms of the bite of a sea-snake showed them-
selves ; and when the foot which he supposed had
been bitten by a crab was examined, marks of fangs
no bigger than mosquito bites were detected near the
ankle. The best remedies were immediately applied,
but death ensued on the third day after the bite. In
another case, a man bitten on the finger by a sea-
snake, but who thought so lightly of it that he took
no means to arrest the poison, died in four hours.

The eyes of sea-serpents are so exclusively adapted
for seeing through the watery medium in which they
live, that, when taken out of the water, or cast ashore,
they are practically blind. Not being able to see,
they cannot take aim, but bite wildly at any object
that may come in their way. They have thus been
known, in rage or terror at finding themselves out of
their element, to bury their fangs in their own body.
Nevertheless, there is at least one kind of sea-serpent
which occasionally leaves the sea to wander over the
salt marshes ; and stories are told of sea-snakes climb-

20

SEA-SNAKES.

ing by chain or rope into ships. Frank Buckland
tells of one which climbed up the anchor-chain of a
man-of-war moored at the mouth of the Ganges.
The midshipman of the watch saw something moving
along the chain, and without thinking went to pick
it up, when it turned upon and bit him. The
unfortunate lad did not live many hours after the
accident.

CHAPTER II.

PONTOPPIDANS SEA-SERPENT.

That sea-serpents thus exist in abundance is beyond
all doubt. Besides these, however, there are great
sea-serpents in the ocean which as much exceed in
size those small forms — the biggest of which is not
more than twelve or fourteen feet in length — as the
giant cuttle-fishes do the ordinary squids. The be-
lief that such a monster exists in the ocean is both
ancient and widespread. There are numerous ac-
counts of its having been seen by mariners of this
and other countries ; and such incidents are becoming
more common now that the ocean has become the
highway of the nations. There is only one thing
lacking to put the existence of the great sea-serpent
beyond all doubt, and that is its capture. Until
this is done, we must be content to judge of the
existence and nature of the sea-serpent from the
narratives of those who are said to have seen it.

Strange to say, traditions of the sea-serpent occur

22

PONT OPPIDAN'S SEA-SERPENT .

chiefly among the Scandinavians — the same who
preserved the story of the legendary kraken. That
they believed implicitly in its existence more than
three centuries ago is proved by the words of
Olaus Magnus, the Archbishop of Upsala, written in
1555.

He states that navigators of all sorts in Norwegian
waters are agreed in this strange story that a serpent
of huge size — namely, two hundred feet long and
twenty feet thick — occurs, and that it is to be found
living in caves and rocks of the sea-coast about
Bergen. This monster, he declares, leaves his aquatic
lair in clear summer nights, and, going ashore, devours
calves and lambs and hogs. At other times he goes
seaward, and feeds on lobsters, octopuses, and crabs.
The archbishop has no difficulty in describing the
creature. “ He hath commonly,” he says, “ hair
hanging from his neck a cubit long, sharp scales, and
is black, and he hath flaming, shining eyes.” This
snake, he adds, disquiets the shepherds ; and no
wonder, seeing “ he puts up his head on high like a
pillar, and catchetli away men, and devours them.”
To bring this creature and its works more vividly
before his readers, Olaus Magnus supplies an illustra-
tion, in which the sea-serpent is seen seizing a sailor
from the deck of a ship, while his companions are all

LEGENDARY SEA-SERPENT.

PONTOPPIDAN’S SEA-SERPENT.

25

taking themselves off to places of safety, leaving
their mate to his fate.

Two centuries later the Scandinavians were more
intelligent, and consequently less credulous, yet still
they believed most firmly in the great sea-serpent.

Pontoppidan, the famous old Bishop of Bergen,
sifted the stories about the sea-serpent, as he did
those of the kraken, and in both cases from being a
sceptic he became a believer. Of the sea-serpent he
says : — “ I have questioned its existence myself, till
that suspicion was removed by full and sufficient
evidence from credible and experienced fishermen
and sailors in Norway, of which there are hundreds
who can testify that they have annually seen it.
All these persons agree very well in the general
description ; and others who acknowledge that they
only know it by report, or by what their neighbours
have told them, still relate the same particulars. In
all my inquiry about these affairs I have hardly
spoken with any intelligent person born in the
manor of Nordland who was not able to give a per-
tinent answer and strong assurances of the existence
of this fish. And some of our north traders that
come here every year with their merchandise think
it a very strange question when they are seriously
asked whether there be any such creature ; they

26

PONTOPPIDAN'S SEA-SERPENT.

think it as ridiculous as if the question was put to
them whether there be such fish as eel or cod.”

A fair specimen of the kind of evidence which
satisfied the Bishop of Bergen is the account given
him by Captain de Ferry of his adventure with the
sea-serpent : —

“ In the latter end of August, in the year 1746,
as I was on a voyage, on my return from Drontheim,
on a very calm and hot day, having a mind to put in
at Molde, it happened that when we were arrived
with my vessel within six English miles of the afore-
said Molde, being at a place called Jule -Naess, as I
was reading in a book, I heard a kind of a murmur-
ing voice from amongst the men at the oars, who
were eight in number, and observed that the man at
the helm kept off from the land. Upon this I in-
quired what was the matter, and was informed that
there was a great sea-snake before us. I then
ordered the man at the helm to keep to the land
again, and to come up with this creature, of which I
had heard so many stories. Though the fellows were
under some apprehension, they were obliged to obey
my orders. In the meantime, the sea-snake passed by
us, and we were obliged to tack the vessel about in
order to get nearer to it. As the snake swam faster
than we could row, I took my gun, that was ready

PONTOPPIDAN'S SEA-SERPENT .

27

charged, and fired at it; on this he immediately
plunged into the water. We rowed to the place
where it sank down (which in the calm might be
easily observed), and lay upon our oars, thinking it
would come up again to the surface ; however, it did
not. Where the snake plunged down the water ap-
peared thick and red ; perhaps some of the shot
might wound it, the distance being very little. The
head of this snake, which it held more than two feet
above the surface of the water, resembled that of a
horse. It was of a grayish colour, and the mouth
was quite black and very large. It had black eyes,
and a long white mane that hung down from the
neck to the surface of the water. Besides the head
and neck, we saw seven or eight folds, or coils, of
this snake, which were very thick ; and as far as we
could guess, there was about a fathom distance be-
tween each fold.”

Pontoppidan gives a figure of the sea-serpent, in
which the head is seen above water, followed at
intervals by the eight coils, which, as they were
supposed to have a fathom between them, look like
so many detached humps. If the creature seen by
De Ferry was in reality a serpent, then, no doubt,
those elevations were connected together by corre-
sponding depressions beneath the water. But it is

28

PONTOPPI DAN'S SEA-SERPENT.

now thought probable that the ancient mariner was
deceived, as many modern ones have been, by the
striking resemblance between a company of porpoises
moving through the water in single file — a way
they have when travelling — and the convolutions of
a gigantic snake-like animal. A sea-serpent very
closely resembling that described by Pontoppidan
was seen in Loch Hourn, on the west of Scotland,
several times within a few days in the year 1872.
It had seven hunches or protuberances in a line, pre-
ceded by a head and neck. Like Pontoppidan’s, it
was most likely a company of travelling porpoises.
Porpoises raise their back above the surface in order
to breathe ; and when thus breathing and moving in
single file they have been described by “ naturalists
and seamen as resembling a long string of casks or
buoys, often extending for eighty or a hundred
yards.” The body of a serpent, as it glides along
the ground or through the water, forms convolutions
or folds; but these are from side to side, and not up
and down. Consequently they would not show as
protuberances above the water.

Several years before this, Hans Egede, the apostle
of Greenland, encountered a sea-monster, of which he
gives an account in his “ Journal of the Missions to
Greenland.”

( Facsimile of a?i Engraving of PontoJ>J>idan's. )

PONTOPPIDAN'S SEA-SERPENT.

31

“ It raised itself/’ he says, “ so high up out of the
water that its head reached above our main-top.”
He describes it as having a long, sharp snout and
broad flippers, and as spouting water like a whale.
Its body seemed covered with scales, its skin uneven
and wrinkled, and its lower part formed like a snake.
The creature after some time plunged back into the
water, and then turned its tail up above the surface a
whole ship’s length from the head.

Hans Egede’s readers are greatly assisted in form-
ing an idea of what this creature was like by a draw-
ing of the animal supplied by a brother missionary.
It has been ingeniously suggested by Mr. Henry Lee
that Egede’s sea-monster was no other than one of
those giant cuttle-fishes whose presence in those
northern seas gave rise to the belief in the kraken.
What Egede believed to be the creature’s head was,
he maintains, the tail part of the cuttle, which goes
in advance as the creature swims, and which it raises
considerably out of the water when propelling itself
upward to the surface. The so-called tail of the
monster he believes to have been one of the arms of
the cuttle-fish.

CHAPTER III.

SCOTTISH AND AMERICAN SEA-SERPENTS.

No more is heard of the sea-serpent till the beginning
of the present century, when the monster, or what
was taken for it, was found stranded on one of the
Orkney Islands. It was measured on the spot, and was
said to be fifty -six feet in length and twelve in
circumference. It had a small head, a long neck, and
a bristly mane, extending all along the back, and was
furnished with three pairs of paddle-like limbs. A
sketch of the animal was taken as it lay on the shore,
and it certainly bore little or no resemblance to any
previously known animal.

Fortunately, however, as the carcass of this sea-
serpent broke up, parts of the backbone were pre-
served and sent to the museums in London and Edin-
burgh, where they were examined by Owen and Home,
who at once pronounced the fragments to be parts of
the backbone of the great basking )shark. This is a
British species, and is the largest of all the sharks;

SCOTTISH AND AMERICAN SEA-SERPENTS.

33

being known to attain a length of thirty-six feet.
Although the largest, it is the least ferocious of the
sharks, being sluggish in its habits, and frequently
lying motionless sunning itself on the surface of the
water. When thus engaged, it will sometimes allow
a boat to touch it before moving. The specimen
stranded on the Orkneys may have been exceptionally
large, but that it was simply a basking shark and no
sea-serpent is beyond all doubt. Had it not been for
the preservation of these few vertebrae, there is little
doubt that this would have been quoted as one of the
best authenticated cases of the occurrence of the sea-
serpent.

In the following year the Wernerian Society of
Natural History, which had published in their Transac-
tions the description and figure of the above-mentioned
monster, received a communication from Mr. Maclean,
the minister of Eigg, in which he relates an adventure
he had with a huge sea-serpent off* the island of Coll.

“ I was rowing in a boat,” he says, “ when I re-
marked about half a mile off* an object which gradually
excited my surprise. At the first glance it appeared
to me like a little rock ; but knowing there was no
rock in that situation, I examined it attentively. I
then perceived that it rose considerably above the

level of the water, and after a slow movement I dis-
cs?) 3

34

SCOTTISH AND AMERICAN SEA-SERPENTS.

tinguished one of its eyes. Alarmed by the animal's
extraordinary aspect and enormous size, I guided the
rudder of my boat in such a manner as not to keep
too far off the shore, when suddenly we saw the
monster plunge in our direction.

“ Persuaded that it was pursuing us, we rowed with
our utmost strength. J ust at the moment that we
sprang upon a rock, where we climbed as high as we
possibly could, we saw it glide rapidly over the surface
of the water towards our boat. At some fathoms
from it, finding the water deep, it reared upright its
horrible head, and sweeping round, was obviously
puzzled how it should disengage itself from the narrow
creek it had entered.

“ We could still perceive it at the distance of half
a mile. Its head was large, of an oval form, and
carried upon the summit of a neck which was more
slender than the remainder of its body. Its shoulders,
if I may so call them, had no fins, and the body
diminished in size towards the tail, whose outline it
was difficult to see very clearly, because the monster
kept it continually under water. It seemed to move
by progressive undulations from above to below. Its
length was probably seventy to eighty feet. It
advanced or receded more slowly each time that its
head was out of the water ; and when it reared it

SCOTTISH AND AMERICAN SEA-SERPENTS,

35

above the sea, it evidently seemed to be looking out
for distant objects.

“ About the same period that I saw this marine
serpent, it was discovered in the neighbourhood of the
island of Canna. The crews of thirteen fishing-boats
were so much alarmed at its appearance that, with
one accord, they all took refuge in the nearest creek.
Between them and Canna the crew on board another
wherry saw it approaching with its head out of the
water. One of the boatmen afterwards declared that
the head was as large as a small barrel, and the eyes
as big as a saucer. With this exception, I have been
unable to obtain from those who met it any more
details more interesting than those I have just
recorded.”

In the month of August 1817 it was announced to
the Linnaean Society of the United States that a
prodigious animal had been several times met with in
Gloucester Bay, near Cape Anne, at about thirty miles
from Boston. Its general character was described
as that of a serpent ; it swam with an astonishing
rapidity, like to a series of buoys or barrels, each
plunging in its turn into the water. It was in
tranquil weather only, and when the sun was shining
with all his splendour, that the monster made its ap-
pearance before the astonished eyes of the fishermen.

36

SCOTTISH AND AMERICAN SEA-SERPENTS.

The Society immediately appointed a committee to
examine into and report upon the tales circulated
respecting this singular animal. The committee
repaired to the spot ; interrogated a great number of
witnesses ; made, in a word, a most searching inquiry,
not less rigid than is pursued by a magistrate when
investigating the circumstances which have accom-
panied a mysterious crime.

The report issued by the committee excited great
attention in America, and the entire agreement of the
depositions of the various witnesses — in so far, at
least, as concerned the principal facts — was amply
sufficient to prove that the inquiry had not been
directed to any empty reverie or idle hoax, but to a
genuine incident.

One of the witnesses had seen the sea-serpent only
from a distance. With his telescope he counted eight
separate portions, and this appearance he attributed to
the animal's undulations in a vertical direction. An-
other saw, on the 10th of August, the reptile gliding
swiftly just beneath the surface, and again caught
sight of it, on the 25 th, tranquilly extended upon the
waves, its deep brown body covering a length of fifty
feet. A third individual compared its head to that
of a rattlesnake, but as large as that of a horse, and
with a body fully one hundred feet long. Between

SCOTTISH AND AMERICAN SEA-SERPENTS .

39

this maximum and the minimum of fifty feet all the
witnesses, we may observe, placed their calculations.
Some had seen it open its jaws, like those of a
terrestrial reptile. In its swimming, which was some-
times rapid, sometimes slow, it described circle after
circle, or struck forward in a straight line. Sometimes
it kept its head raised a foot above the surface of
the sea.

On the 14th and 28th several guns were fired at
it \ and at each discharge it turned round, made towards
the boat, then diving under the keel, reappeared a
few fathoms beyond. But at the second attack,
probably being wounded, it kept away and returned
no more, and by this means terminated the observa-
tions of which it had been the object.

Another American sea-serpent was observed by a
party of five British officers while crossing in a yacht
from Halifax to Mahone Bay. Not more than two
hundred yards from them they saw a sea -monster,
whose head and neck were precisely like those of a
common snake, in the act of swimming, the head
being so far elevated and thrown forward by the
curve of the neck as to enable them to see the water
under and beyond it. The creature rapidly passed,
but they judged its length to be about eighty feet.
Its head appeared to be about six feet in length, and

40

SCOTTISH AND AMERICAN SEA-SERPENTS .

they saw about as much of the neck. The entire
appearance of the creature convinced them that they
had been favoured with a view of the genuine sea-
serpent.

The great sea-serpent is next heard of in its old
familiar resort — the Norwegian coast — where, in the
neighbourhood of Christiansund and Molde, it was
seen at different times in 1846 by a large number of
respectable witnesses. One man, when sitting in his
boat during the dog days, saw it twice within two
hours. The second time it came so close to him —
within six feet — that he got thoroughly alarmed, and
commending his soul to God, he lay down in the boat
with his head only high enough to keep an eye on
the monster. It passed him, and then returned; but a
breeze springing up, it finally disappeared.

The number of respectable Norwegians who testify
to having seen a sea-serpent in the same neighbour-
hood at that time renders it certain that some un-
usually large sea-monster had been then visiting the
locality. Of their various narratives the most satis-
factory in every respect is that of Archdeacon Dein-
bolt of Molde. He states that on 28th July 1845,
while four of the inhabitants of Molde were out fish-
ing in Romsdal-fiord during a warm sunshiny day,
they saw a long marine animal, which slowly ad-

SCOTTISH AND AMERICAN SEA-SERPENTS.

41

vanced by the aid, as they thought, of two fins on
the fore part of the body. They seem, however, only
to have guessed the existence of fins by the commo-
tion in the water on both sides of the creature’s head.

“ The visible part of the body,” says the archdeacon,
“ appeared to be between forty and fifty feet in
length, and moved in undulations like a snake. The
body was round, and of a dark colour, and seemed to
be several ells in thickness. As they discerned a
waving motion in the water behind the animal, they
concluded that part of the body was concealed under
water. That it was one continuous animal they saw
plainly from its movement. When the animal was
about one hundred yards from the boat they noticed
tolerably correctly its fore parts, which ended in a
sharp snout. Its colossal head raised itself above the
water in the form of a semicircle ; the lower part
was not visible. The colour of the head was dark
brown, and the skin smooth. They did not notice
the eyes, or any mane or bristles on the throat.
When the serpent came about a musket -shot near,
Lund fired at it, and was certain the shots hit it on
the head. After the shot it dived, but came up
immediately. It raised its neck in the air, like a
snake preparing to dart on its prey. After he had
turned and got his body in a straight line, which he

42

SCOTTISH AND AMERICAN SEA-SERPENTS.

appeared to do with great difficulty, he darted like an
arrow against the boat. They reached the shore ; and
the animal, perceiving it had come into shallow water,
dived immediately and disappeared in the deep.

“ Such is the declaration of these four men ; and no
one has cause to question their veracity, or imagine
that they were so seized with fear that they could not
observe what took place so near them. There are not
many here, or on other parts of the Norwegian coast
who longer doubt the existence of the sea-serpent.
The writer of this narrative was a long time sceptical,
as he had not been so fortunate as to see this monster
of the deep ; but after the many accounts he has
read, and the relations he has received from credible
witnesses, he does not dare longer to doubt the exist-
ence of the sea-serpent.”

It is chiefly the points in this very minute descrip-
tion of a sea-serpent that led Mr. Henry Lee to pro-
pound the theory that in this and most other cases
of the occurrence of the sea-serpent, the creature seen
was in reality a giant cuttle-fish. These, as will be
shown later on, occur in Norwegian waters. They
grow to a length of over fifty feet, and in calm warm
weather they float on the surface. Their lozenge-
shaped tail might readily be mistaken for the head,
seeing those creatures shoot through the water tail

SCOTTISH AND AMERICAN SEA-SERPENTS.

43

first. That part of the body between the tail and the
tentacles might well pass for the neck ; while a long
and supple tentacle floating behind on the surface
might readily convey the idea of a serpentine body.
It is hard to understand the boiling of the water
referred to by Deinbolt, if the creature possessed the
gliding motion of a snake. On the other hand, the
forcible ejection of water from the funnel, necessary
for the creature’s propulsion, would quite explain the
commotion in the water, if what the four boatmen
of Molde saw was no sea-serpent, but only a giant
cuttle-fish.

The belief in the existence of a great sea-serpent
by the Norwegians is unhesitating, and nothing aston-
ishes them more than the scepticism which prevails in
this country on the point. A writer in the Times ,
who spent three summers in Norway, says : —

“ I have repeatedly conversed with the natives on
this subject. A parish priest residing on Romsdal-
fiord, about two days’ journey south of Drontheim, an
intelligent person, whose veracity I have no reason to
doubt, gave me a circumstantial account of one which
he had himself seen. It rose within thirty yards of
the boat in which he was, and swam parallel with it
for a considerable time. Its head he described as
equalling a small cask in size, and its mouth, which it

44

SCOTTISH AND AMERICAN SEA-SERPENTS.

repeatedly opened and shut, was furnished with for-
midable teeth. Its neck was smaller, but its body —
of which he supposed that he saw about half on the
surface of the water — was not less in girth than that
of a moderately-sized horse.

“ Another gentleman, in whose house I stayed, had
also seen one, and gave a similar account of it. It
also came near his boat upon the fiord, when it was
fired at ; upon which it turned and pursued them to
the shore, which was luckily near, when it disappeared.
They expressed great surprise at the general disbelief
attaching to the existence of these animals amongst
naturalists, and assured me that there was scarcely
a sailor accustomed to those inland lakes who had not
seen them at one time or another.’,

CHAPTER IV.

THE “D^DALUS” SEA-SERPENT.

Interest in the vexed question of the sea-serpent was
revived in England by the news received in October
1848 that the creature had been seen by the officers
on board her Majesty’s ship Daedalus, between the
Cape of Good Hope and St. Helena.

In reply to a communication from the Admiralty
on the subject, Captain M‘Quhae of the Dcedalus stated
that on the 6th of August, when the weather was
dark and cloudy, a midshipman reported that some-
thing very unusual was rapidly approaching the ship
from before the beam. “ On our attention,” he says,
“ being called to the object, it was discovered to be an
enormous serpent, with head and shoulders kept about
four feet constantly above the surface of the sea ; and,
as nearly as we could approximate by comparing it
with the length of what our main-top-sail would show
in the water, there was at the very least sixty feet
of the animal d fleur d’eau, no portion of which was,

46

THE D JED ALUS SEA-SERPENT.

to our perception, used in propelling it through the
water, either by vertical or horizontal undulation. It
passed rapidly, but so close under our lee quarter, that
had it been a man of my acquaintance I should easily
have recognized his features with the naked eye ; and
it did not, either in approaching the ship or after it
had passed our wake, deviate in the slightest degree
from its course to the south-west, which it held on at
the pace of from twelve to fifteen miles per hour,
apparently on some determined purpose.

“ The diameter of the serpent was about fifteen or
sixteen inches behind the head, which was without
any doubt that of a snake ; and it was never, during
the twenty minutes it continued in sight of our glasses,
once below the surface of the water : its colour was dark
brown, and yellowish- white about the throat. It had
no fins, but something like the mane of a horse, or
rather a bunch of sea- weed, washed about its back. It
was seen by the quartermaster, the boatswain’s mate,
and the man at the wheel, in addition to myself and
the officers above mentioned.

“ I am having a drawing of the serpent made, from
a sketch taken immediately after it was seen, which I
hope to have ready for transmission to my Lords
Commissioners of the Admiralty.”

Lieutenant Drummond, the officer of the watch,

THE DAEDALUS SEA-SERPENT.

49

entered in his log-book at the time his impressions of
what he saw. His statement fe as follows : —

“ In the four to six watch, at about five o’clock, we
observed a most remarkable fish on our lee-water,
crossing the stern in a south-west direction. The
appearance of its head, which with the back fin was
the only portion of the animal visible, was long,
pointed, and flattened at the top, perhaps ten feet in
length, the upper jaw projecting considerably. The
fin was perhaps twenty feet in the rear of the head,
and visible occasionally. The captain also asserted
that he saw the tail, or another fin, about the same
distance behind it. The upper part of the head and
shoulders appeared of a dark brown colour, and be-
neath the under jaw a brownish-white. It pursued
a steady, undeviating course, keeping its head hori-
zontal with the surface of the water, and in rather
a raised position, disappearing occasionally beneath a
wave for a very brief interval, and not apparently for
purposes of respiration. It was going at the rate of
perhaps from twelve to fourteen miles an hour, and
when nearest was perhaps one hundred yards distant.
In fact, it gave one quite the idea of a large snake or
eel. No one in the ship has ever seen anything simi-
lar ; so it is at least extraordinary. It was visible to
the naked eye for five minutes, and with a glass for

(37) 4

50

THE D HID ALUS SEA-SERPENT.

perhaps fifteen more. The weather was dark and
squally at the time, with some sea running.”

The publication of this further testimony to the
existence of what seemed to be a huge sea-serpent
gave rise to much controversy. Naturalists were
loath to recognize in it anything absolutely new.
One suggested that it might be a survivor of the
great marine reptiles of former periods, while another
thought it might be the Plesiosaurus . Professor
Owen pooh-poohed this view, but could think of noth-
ing more likely than that the monster seen from the
Pcedalus was a great seal. The most likely species
was, in his opinion, the sea-elephant, which attains
the length of from twenty to thirty feet. These great
seals, he says, abound in certain of the islands of the
Southern and Antarctic Seas, from which an indi-
vidual is occasionally floated off upon an iceberg.
When a large sea-elephant is thus borne off to a dis-
tance from its native shore, it is compelled to return
for rest to its floating abode, after it has made its daily
excursions in quest of the fishes or squids that con-
stitute its food. It is thus brought by the iceberg
into the latitudes of the Cape, and perhaps farther
north before the berg has melted away. Then the
poor seal is compelled to swim as long as strength
endures ; and in such a predicament he imagines the

SEA-SERPENT PASSING UNDER THE STERN OF THE D/EDALUS.

THE DAEDALUS SEA-SERPENT .

53

creature was that was seen rapidly approaching the
Dcedalus from before the beam, scanning probably its
capabilities as a resting-place, as it paddled its long
stiff body past the ship.

Captain M'Quhae made a spirited reply to Professor
Owen, which, as it throws some additional light on the
creature’s appearance and movements, may here be
quoted.

“ Professor Owen,” he says, “ correctly states that I
evidently saw a large creature moving rapidly through
the water very different from anything I had before
witnessed — neither a whale, a grampus, a great shark,
an alligator, nor any of the large surface-swimming
creatures fallen in with on ordinary voyages. I now
assert, neither was it a common seal nor a sea-elephant,
its great length and its totally different physiognomy
precluding the possibility of its being a phoca of any
species. The head was flat, and not a capacious
vaulted cranium ; nor had it a stiff inflexible trunk —
a conclusion at which Professor Owen has jumped,
most certainly not justified by the simple statement
that no portion of the sixty feet seen by us was used
in propelling it through the water, either by vertical
or horizontal undulation.

“ It is also assumed that the calculation of its length
was made under a strong preconception of the nature

54

THE D JED ALUS SEA-SERPENT.

of the beast — another conclusion quite contrary to the
facts. It was not until after the great length was
developed by its nearest approach to the ship, and
until after that most important point had been duly
considered and debated — as well as such could be in
the brief space of time allowed for so doing — that it
was pronounced to be a serpent by all who saw it,
and who are too well accustomed to judge of lengths
and breadths of objects in the sea to mistake a real
substance and an actual living body, coolly and dis-
passionately contemplated, at so short a distance too,
for the ‘ eddy caused by the action of the deeper
immersed fins and tail of a rapidly moving gigantic
seal raising its head above the surface of the water/
as Professor Owen imagines, in quest of its lost ice-
berg.

“ The creative powers of the human mind may be
very limited. On this occasion they were not called
into requisition, my purpose and desire throughout
being to furnish eminent naturalists, such as the
learned professor, with accurate facts, and not with
exaggerated representations, nor with what could by
any possibility proceed from optical illusion. And I
beg to assure him that old Pontoppidan having
clothed his sea-serpent with a mane could not have
suggested the idea of ornamenting the creature seen

THE DAEDALUS SEA-SERPENT.

55

from the Dcedalus with a similar appendage, for the
simple reason that I had never seen his account or
even heard of his sea-serpent until my arrival in Lon-
don. Some other solution must therefore be found for
the very remarkable coincidence between us in that
particular, in order to unravel the mystery.

“ Finally, I deny the existence of excitement or the
possibility of optical illusion. I adhere to the state-
ments, as to form, colour, and dimensions, contained
in my official report to the Admiralty, and I leave
them as data whereupon the learned and scientific
may exercise the ‘ pleasures of imagination/ until some
more fortunate opportunity shall occur of making a
closer acquaintance with the ‘ great unknown/ in the
present instance most assuredly no ghost.”

Giant squids were as yet undiscovered, so that the
suggestion that the sea-serpent of the Dcedalus might
have been one of these creatures was not made ; nor
is there much either in the description or in the
accompanying figure to bear out Mr. Lee’s cuttle-fish
theory.

CHAPTER Y.

RECENT SEA-SERPENTS.

Captain M/Quhae’s narrative put sea-faring people on
the outlook for the sea-serpent. Not many months
after, when the ship Brazilian was sailing within
forty miles of the place where the Dcedalus encoun-
tered the monster, the captain saw a strange object
astern, apparently twenty-five to thirty feet in length,
and moving from the ship with a steady sinuous
motion. The head appeared to be raised several
feet above the water, and seemed to have a mane
running down to the floating portion, and extending
to within six feet from the tail. All who saw it at
once concluded that they were in presence of the
great sea-serpent. To end all doubt on the point,
however, it was determined that an effort should be
made to capture it. A boat was accordingly lowered,
and with the captain standing, harpoon in hand, it
was rowed towards the monster. The closer view
now obtained of it showed that it was only an im-

RECENT SEA-SERPENTS.

57

mense piece of sea- weed drifting with the current, and
which owed its snake-like motion to the swell caused
by a previous gale !

This is not the only case on record in which the
sea-serpent resolved itself into sea- weed. The captain
of the ship Pekin reported that on December 28th,
1848, when his ship was about half-way between the
Cape and St. Helena, he saw an extraordinary object
of considerable length in the water. With the tele-
scope he could plainly discern a huge head and neck,
covered with a shaggy-looking kind of mane, which
it kept lifting at intervals out of the water. All on
board saw it, and all declared it to be the great sea-
serpent. A boat was lowered, and a line made fast
to the “ snake,” when it was towed alongside and
hoisted on board. It was then seen to be a piece of
gigantic sea- weed, completely covered with snake-like
barnacles. “ So like a huge living monster did this
appear,” says the captain, “ that had circumstances pre-
vented my sending a boat to it, I should certainly
have believed I had seen the great sea-serpent.”

Captain M'Quhae’s account of his adventure led also
to the publication of several narratives of similar
instances not before recorded. Among these was that
of Surgeon Davidson, who stated that when returning
to India in the Royal Saxon , in the year 1829, he and

58

RECENT SEA -SERPENTS .

the captain were at the same instant literally fixed in
astonishment by the appearance a short distance ahead
of an animal bearing a close resemblance to that seen
by Captain M'Qubae. “ It passed within thirty-five
yards of the ship without altering its course in the
least ; but as it came abreast of us it slowly turned
its head towards us. Apparently about one-third of
the upper part of its body was above water, and we
could see the water curling up on its breast as it
moved along ; but by what means it moved we could
not perceive. We watched it going astern with in-
tense interest until it had nearly disappeared, when
my companion, turning to me with a countenance
expressive of the utmost astonishment, exclaimed,
‘ Good heavens ! what can that be V ”

After 1848 nothing further is heard of this sea
monster till 1852, when the passengers on board the
Barham , bound for India, got a glimpse of it. It is
thus described by one of the passengers : —

“ About five hundred yards from the ship there was
the head and neck of an enormous snake. We saw
about sixteen or twenty feet out of the water, and he
spouted a long way from his head. Down his back
he had a crest like a cock’s comb ; and was going very
slowly through the water, but left a wake of about
fifty or sixty feet, as if dragging a long body after

REGENT SEA-SERPENTS.

61

him. The captain put the ship off her course to run
clown to him ; but as we approached him he went
down. His colour wTas green, with light spots. He
was seen by all on board.”

Five years later, while the ship Castilian was sail-
ing within ten miles of St. Helena, it encountered
what has been described by the captain and two chief
officers as a great sea-serpent.

“ While myself and officers,” says Captain Harring-
ton, “ were standing on the lee side of the poop,
looking towards the island, we were startled by the
sight of a huge marine animal, which reared its head
out of the water within twenty yards of the ship,
when it suddenly disappeared for about half a minute,
and then made its appearance in the same manner
again, showing us distinctly its neck and head about
ten or twelve feet out of the water. Its head was
shaped like a long nun-buoy, and I suppose the
diameter to have been seven or eight feet in the
largest part, with a kind of scroll or tuft of loose skin
encircling it about two feet from the top. The water
was discoloured for several hundred feet from its head,
so much so that on its first appearance my impression
was that the ship was in broken water, produced, as I
supposed, by some volcanic agency since the last time
I passed the island. But the second appearance com-

62

RECENT SEA-SERPENTS .

pletely dispelled those fears, and assured us that it
was a monster of extraordinary length, which appeared
to be moving slowly towards the land. The ship was
going too fast to enable us to reach the mast-head in
time to form a correct estimate of its extreme length ;
but from what we saw from the deck, we conclude
that it must have been over two hundred feet long.
The boatswain and several of the crew who observed
it from the top-gallant forecastle state that it was
more than double the length of the ship, in which case
it must have been five hundred feet. Be that as it
may, I am convinced that it belonged to the serpent
tribe. It was of a dark colour about the head, and
was covered with several white spots. Having a press
of canvas on the ship at the time, I was unable to
round -to without risk, and therefore was precluded
from getting another sight of this leviathan of the
deep.”

Coming to recently published accounts of the ap-
pearance of what observers regarded as the great sea-
serpent, the most remarkable is that related by the
officers and crew of the Pauline. Their vessel was
on its way from Shields to Zanzibar, when in July
1875 they observed three large sperm whales, one of
which was gripped round the body with two turns of
what appeared to be a huge serpent. The head and

THE SEA-SERPENT AND SPERM WHALE. AS SEEN FROM THE PAULINE.

RECENT SEA-SERPENTS.

65

tail appeared to have a length beyond the coils of
about thirty feet, its girth being eight or nine feet.
The serpent whirled its victim round and round for
about fifteen minutes, then suddenly dragged the
whale to the bottom head first.

Five days later a similar serpent was seen about
two hundred yards off, shooting along the surface,
head and neck being out of the water several feet.
A few moments after it was seen elevated some sixty
feet perpendicularly in the air. This monster seems
to have been the most snake-like among all those that
have been called sea-serpents. It had no fins ; it was
seen grappling with its prey exactly as a boa-con-
strictor would have done; it carried its neck and head
high as it shot along, just as the land-snake does when
gliding along the ground ; and it rose perpendicularly
out of the water until it must almost have been stand-
ing on its tail, and land-snakes are thus also known
to stand erect.

The year 1875 appears to have been a famous one
for sea-serpents, one of the most noteworthy being
that which was seen by a party of Americans yachting
oft' the Massachusetts coast. Those who saw it were
for the most part educated people, and were widely
known and respected. The following is the story as
told by one of them : — “On the 30th of July 1875 a

(37) 5

66

RECENT SEA-SERPENTS.

party of us were upon the yacht Princess , and while
sailing between Swampscott and Egg Rock we saw a
very strange creature. As nearly as we could judge
from a distance of about one hundred and fifty yards,
its head resembled that of a turtle or a snake, black
above and white beneath. It raised its head from
time to time some six or eight feet out of the water,
keeping it out from five to ten seconds at a time.
At the back of the neck there was a fin, resembling
that of a black-fish (a small species of whale), and
underneath, some distance below its throat, was a pro-
jection which looked as if it might have been the
beginning of a pair of fins or flippers like those of a
seal. But as to that we could not be sure, as the
creature never raised itself far enough out of the
water to enable us to decide. Its head seemed to be
about two and a half feet in diameter. Of its length
we could not judge, as only its head and neck were
visible. We followed it about for perhaps two hours.
It was fired at repeatedly with a Ballard rifle, but
without apparent effect, though one ball seemed to
strike it. It was seen and watched by the whole
party upon the yacht.” A person fishing in the neigh-
bourhood while the chase was going on corroborated
most of the above statement, and added that he ob-
served on the dark surface of the creature two elon-

RECENT SEA-SERPENTS.

67

gated white marks about six feet in length and six
inches wide. Two weeks earlier, Captain Garton,
when off Plymouth, U.S., saw~ a somewhat similar sea
monster which appeared to be pursuing a sword-fish.
The head of the monster, he says, was raised at least
ten feet above the ocean, but remained stationary
only a moment, as it was almost constantly in motion;
now diving for a moment, and as suddenly reappear-
ing to the same height. Its length was more than a
hundred feet, and its motion reminded him of that of
a caterpillar. On the same day what appears to have
been the same monster was observed by a passenger
on board the Roman , in her course from Boston to
Philadelphia. He states, however, that a sword-fish
was attacking the sea-serpent. “ When the sword-
fish/’ he says, “ first attacked him, he reared his head
at least ten feet above the water, and then dived
down once more. Those actions he kept repeating, so
that we had a fine opportunity to scrutinize him.
His head was rather flat, and closely resembled that
of a turtle. The fin we first observed was on the
back, several feet from the head, while small fins pro-
truded on each side. The body was at least eighty
inches in diameter, and presented a shiny surface
covered with large, coarse scales. When he moved
his head, the water seemed to fairly boil as he rapidly

68

RECENT SEA-SERPENTS,

clove his way through the waves, so that by far the
largest portion of his body must have been under the
water. We estimated his length to be at least sixty
feet ; but the pilot informed us that a few weeks pre-
viously he rose alongside the steamer Roman , and
they reported him to be one hundred and twenty feet
long.” The Rev. J. G. Wood has carefully collected
these different narratives on the spot, and has formed
a theory as to the nature of the creature which will
be noticed later on.

Two years later, what appears to have been a very
unserpent-like sea-serpent was seen by Lieutenant
Haynes, Commander Pearson, and other officers of the
royal yacht Osborne when off the coast of Sicily.

“ On the evening of June 6th,” says the lieutenant, *
“ the sea being perfectly smooth, my attention was
first called by seeing a ridge of fins above the surface
of the water, extending about thirty feet, and varying
from five to six feet in height. On inspecting it by
means of a telescope, at about one and a half cable’s
distance, I distinctly saw a head, two flippers, and
about thirty feet of an animal’s shoulder. The head,
as nearly as I could judge, was about six feet thick,
the neck narrower, about four to five feet, the shoulder
about fifteen feet across, and the flippers each about
fifteen feet in length. The movements of the flippers

( The Row of Fins as seen at first.)

.

RECENT SEA-SERPENTS.

71

were those of a turtle, and the animal resembled a
huge seal, the resemblance being strongest about the
back of the head. I could not see the length of the
head, but from its crown or top to just below the
shoulder (where it became immersed) I should reckon
about fifty feet. The tail end I did not see, being
under water, unless the ridge of fins to which my
attention was first attracted, and which had disap-
peared by the time I got a telescope, was really the
continuation of the shoulder to the end of the object’s
body. The animals head was not always above water,
but was thrown upwards, remaining above for a few
seconds at a time, and then disappearing. There was
an entire absence of £ blowing 5 or ‘ spouting/ I here-
with beg to enclose a rough sketch showing the view
of the ‘ ridge of fins/ and also of the animal in the act
of propelling itself by its two fins.”

It is easy to see that this creature could not have
been a snake, possessing, as it appears to have done,
the dorsal fins of a basking shark, the flippers of a
turtle, and the head of a seal. This conundrum of an
animal has been fairly given up by naturalists as unex-
plainable by a reference to any known group of animals.

Two years later — namely, in 1879 — Major Senior
reported that while on board the steam-ship City of
Baltimore in the Gulf of Aden he observed a long

*7 2

RECENT SEA-SERPENTS.

black object darting rapidly in and out of the water,
and advancing nearer to the vessel. The shape of the
head was not unlike pictures of the dragon he had
often seen, with a bull-dog expression of the forehead
and eyebrows. When the monster had drawn its head
sufficiently out of the water, it let its body drop as if
it were a log of wood prior to darting forward under
the water. This motion caused a splash of about
fifteen feet in length on either side of the neck much
in the shape of a pair of wings.

To account for many of the sea-serpent stories that
have just been narrated, as well as others left un-
noticed, it is not necessary to believe in the existence
of any hitherto unknown animal. The sea-serpent
has in some cases resolved itself into a piece of giant
sea-weed, in others into a procession of travelling por-
poises. A flock of sea-birds flying in line close to the
water has more than once been mistaken for one of
those sea monsters, until a sudden change in the direc-
tion of flight of the birds, or the application of a
telescope, at once made manifest the true nature of the
appearance. The theory also that in many cases the
sea-serpent was in reality a giant cuttle-fish has much
in its favour.

There are a few cases, however, such as that of the
monster seen from the Dcedalns , which cannot be

RECENT SEA-SERPENTS.

75

readily explained by a reference to any known animal,
and which go far to justify the belief that there dwells
in the sea a huge, serpent-like creature, of which
glimpses have been had, but which has yet to be
captured and described. Seeing that no known
animal now living quite meets the case, naturalists
have sought among extinct animals for anything
approaching in form the so-called sea-serpent, and
here they have been rather more successful. In the
rocks of the Mesozoic age are found the remains of
huge marine lizards — plesiosaurs and pliosaurs, crea-
tures described by Buckland as having the head of a
lizard, the teeth of a crocodile, a neck of enormous
length resembling the body of a serpent, the ribs of a
chameleon, and the paddles of a whale. They were
serpent-like creatures propelled by paddles ; a descrip-
tion that seems best to agree with the so-called sea-
serpent. Accordingly those naturalists, like Gosse,
who believe in the existence of the great sea-serpent
are inclined to regard it as a living descendant of
some one of those ancient saurians.

That a more or less modified descendant of those
ancient sea-lizards should still live in the waters of
the ocean is by no means impossible, although it must
be added that no fossil remains of them have been
found in Tertiary rocks.

76

RECENT SEA-SERPENTS.

As giving probability to the view that such crea-
tures may still exist in the ocean, although no recent
remains of them have been found, Mr. Gosse refers to
a remarkable incident that occurred to Captain the
Honourable George Hope. When in command of her
Majesty’s ship Fly in the Gulf of California, this
officer, when the sea was perfectly calm and trans-
parent, saw at the bottom a large marine animal with
the head and general figure of an alligator, except
that the neck was much longer, and that instead of
legs the creature had four large flippers somewhat like
those of turtles, the front pair being larger than those
behind. The creature was distinctly visible, and all
its movements could be observed with ease. It ap-
peared to he pursuing its . prey at the bottom of the
sea. Its movements, he adds, were somewhat ser-
pentine.

If the above be an accurate description of what
Captain Hope saw, the creature can scarcely have been
other than one of those long-lost marine reptiles.

Founding on the evidence obtained by him regard-
ing the American sea-serpent seen in 1875, the Rev.
J. G. Wood came to the conclusion that the monster
must have been a cetacean. “ Every movement of
the creature,” he says, “ is cetacean. The habit of
pushing the head out of the water is distinctly ceta-

RECENT SEA-SERPENTS.

77

cean, the sperm whales being much addicted to this
custom. The caterpillar-like bend of the body is also
cetacean, and may be witnessed any day when a
school of porpoises curve their graceful course over
the waves.” A snake-like cetacean would exactly
meet the case, but no such form is at present known.
In Tertiary times, however, a creature closely answer-
ing this description existed in the zeuglodon, the fossil
vertebrae of which have been discovered in Alabama.
The length of this creature when alive must have
been about seventy feet. The continued existence of
a zeuglodon-like animal would, according to Mr. Wood,
best explain the sea-serpent.

It is no doubt remarkable that, if such a monster,
whether cetacean or saurian, really exists, its remains
should not have been found ; but this is by no means
a conclusive argument against the existence of the
sea-serpent. Giant cuttle-fishes, reaching to a total
length of about eighty feet, have been living in the
ocean for ages, yet it is only during the past ten
years that we have become fully satisfied by their
actual capture of their existence. There are large
land animals, such as one of the rhinoceroses, of
which only one specimen has as yet been found, and
every deep-sea exploration brings to light troops of
marine animals hitherto unknown. With the sea

78

RECENT SEA-SERPENTS.

occupying two-thirds of the surface of the globe, and
descending over large tracts to depths varying from
two to five miles, it would be presumptuous for any
one to say that the ocean does not harbour in its
recesses a great serpent-like monster still practically
unknown to man.

CHAPTER YI.

THE LEGENDARY KRAKEN.

In the early days, when as yet the sea had not
become the highway of the nations, little was known
of the denizens of the deep. The element in which
they lived, with its dangers and its depths, forbade
too close a scrutiny ; but it gave free play to the
glowing imaginations of the dwellers by the sea, who
thus manufactured monsters of their own out of the
living wonders of the deep.

Such a monster was the kraken, famous in the
traditions of the Scandinavian coasts. According to
Pontoppidan, the Norwegian bishop, who published in
1750 an account of this mysterious sea monster, the
Norse fishermen one and all affirm that when they
row out several miles to sea, particularly in the hot
summer days, they occasionally find a depth of twenty
or thirty fathoms, and even less, where, from their
position, they expect a depth of eighty or a hundred
fathoms. This is to them a pleasing circumstance, as

80

THE LEGENDARY IvRAKEN.

in such places they always find abundance of fish,
especially of cod and ling, their lines being no sooner
out than they are ready for drawing in with a fish
on every hook. They know by this that the kraken
is at the bottom, and that to its presence the unusual
shallowness of the fishing-ground is due.

Sometimes, he says, twenty boats or more are thus
engaged fishing at a moderate distance from each
other, and the only thing they have to watch is
whether the depth continues the same, or whether
it becomes shallower. In the latter event they know
that the kraken is rising to the surface, and that it
is time consequently for them to be off. Accordingly
as soon as the water shows shallowing they cease
fishing, take to their oars, and get away as fast as
they can. They stop as soon as they have reached
water of the natural depth, and being now out of
danger they rest on their oars and watch the monster
as it rises slowly to the surface.

Its back or upper part, says Pontoppidan, appears
to be about a mile and a half in circumference, and
at first resembles a number of small islands sur-
rounded with something that floats about like sea-
weed. Here and there a larger rising, like a sand-bank,
is observed, on which fishes of various sorts are seen
continually leaping about till they roll off at the sides

THE LEGENDARY KRAKEN.

81

into the water. At last several bright points or
horns appear, which grow in thickness the higher
they rise above the surface of the water, and some-
times they stand up as high and as large as the
masts of a middle-sized ship. These, it seems, are
the creature’s arms ; and such is their strength, that
if they seized the largest man-of-war they would
infallibly drag it to the bottom.

After remaining a short time at the surface, the
kraken descends as slowly as it rose ; but even then
the danger is not less for any vessel within reach,
as in sinking it displaces so great a volume of water
as to give rise to a whirlpool capable, like that of the
Maelstrom, of drawing everything down with it.

Its arms, he affirms, are used for moving with, as
also for gathering its food. For the latter purpose
the kraken is likewise provided with a strong and
peculiar scent which it can emit at certain times, and
by means of which other fish are attracted towards it.
As if this were not enough, he tells, on the testimony
of many old fishermen, of another curious provision in
the kraken for capturing its prey. They had ob-
served that for some months the kraken is constantly
eating, and that in other months it voids its excre-
ment. The voiding of the latter renders the sur-
rounding water thick and turbid — a muddiness which

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82

THE LEGENDARY KRAKEN

is so agreeable to the senses of fishes that they gather
from all quarters to it. Seizing its opportunity, the
monster lays hold of them with its arms and swallows
them, the digestive process that follows converting
them into bait for other fishes.

In all accounts the kraken is represented as being
large enough to be mistaken for an island. On one
occasion some fishermen are said to have landed on
its back, taking it for land ; but when they had
lighted a fire on it, the creature sank beneath their
feet, and engulfed them in the eddying waters. More
fortunate than these poor fishermen was a certain
Norwegian saint, who when sailing on Sunday on
board a Norwegian ship regretted that he could not
celebrate mass on dry land. Immediately there arose
from the wraves at no great distance a new island.
Everybody landed, and the good saint officiated at
an altar which was immediately erected. But they
had scarcely quitted the island and regained the ship
before it gave a shudder and sank deep into the sea.
The island was a kraken.

This sea monster was believed to be of rare occur-
rence, and was generally regarded as immortal. This,
however, is hardly consistent with the account given
by Pontoppidan of the finding of the dead carcass of
one. In 1C 80, as he was told, a kraken had come

THE KRAKEN. AS SEEN BY THE EYE OF IMAGINATION.

THE LEGENDAR Y KRAKEN.

85

into the water that runs between the rocks and cliffs
of the parish of Alstahoug, though its general custom
was to keep several leagues from land. It happened
that its long extended arms caught hold of some trees
standing near the water, which might easily have
been torn up by the roots; but, besides, he had further
entangled himself in some openings or clefts in the
rocks, where he stuck so fast, and hung so unfortu-
nately, that he could not work himself out, but perished
and rotted on the spot. The carcass, which was a
long while decaying, and filled great part of that
narrow channel, made it, he says, almost impassable
by its intolerable stench.

When the bishop comes to recount the harm done
by the kraken he has to confess that there is little
to be told. This, he hints, may be due not to any
supposed harmlessness in this huge creature, but to
the thoroughness with which it destroyed — that, in
fact, no one attacked ever lived to tell the tale.
Passing, however, from conjecture to facts, he tells
of two fishermen who accidentally got into a slimy
piece of water like a morass — the surroundings usually
produced by the presence of a kraken. They im-
mediately tried to get out of the place ; but before
they could accomplish this one of the creature’s arms
came down on their boat and crushed part of it, so

86

THE LEGENDARY KRAKEN.

that they had the utmost difficulty in saving their
lives on the wreck, although the sea was calm, as it
is always represented to have been when this monster
appeared on its surface.

While there is much to smile at in the accounts of
the legendary kraken, the animal itself is not to be
dismissed as altogether mythical. Its numerous arms
and the use to which it put them, its habit of render-
ing the water thick and turbid, as well as its musky
scent, all point to one or other of the numerous class
of cuttle-fishes as the true original of the Scandi-
navian kraken. Ignorance and superstitious wonder,
no doubt, led the Norsemen to exaggerate its size,
and to clothe it with unearthly terrors ; but the
reader will see in the following account of what is
now known regarding the cuttle-fishes that they are
both big enough, and in many cases hideous enough,
to have suggested such a monster as the kraken to
an ignorant and credulous people.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CUTTLE-FISH OR SEPIA.

No more curious animals exist in the sea than cuttle-
fishes. They are not fishes at all, but are molluscs,
like oysters and snails. They are called “ head-footed/’
because around their mouth a large number of tentacles
or feet are arranged ; and it will by-and-by be seen
how useful these organs are to the creatures possessing
them.

Sometimes the tentacles are used as feet for walk-
ing with, but as a rule these creatures don’t walk, they
swim ; and no other creatures in the world have so
curious a means of moving themselves from one place
to another. In front of the body is a funnel, and
from this, when they want to progress rapidly, they
forcibly expel a stream of water, with the result that
they are propelled backwards— that is, in the opposite
direction from the current issuing from the funnel.

Another curious organ in connection with the
funnel is the ink-bag. This sac contains a black

88

THE CUTTLE-FISH OR SEPIA.

fluid, and when the cuttle-fish is menaced with danger
or otherwise irritated it shoots out a quantity of its
inky ammunition through its funnel, and under cover
of the dusky cloud thus produced it seeks a hiding-
place. “ I had followed,” says a recent observer, “ one
of those animals to a small hole in a rock. In vain
I solicited him to come out by gentle pulls with a
boat-hook. At last, when they were harder than he
liked, he discharged the contents of his ink-bag all
over me, and spoiled my waistcoat and trowsers com-
pletely— that dye requiring no mordant, and being,
as far as I know, indelible.”

There are three very distinct kinds of those “ head-
footed ” molluscs — namely, the cuttle-fishes proper,
the octopuses, and the squids. A common object on
the sea-shore in the south of England is the cuttle-
bone, or sea-biscuit, as it is sometimes called from its
shape. This is the internal shell of the common
cuttle-fish, and is much more frequently seen than
is the creature which grows it. It is a small but
beautiful animal, its body being striped like that of
the zebra ; and it has ten arms, two of them being
longer than the others.

It has the best supply of ink of all those creatures,
and is the one that uses it most readily. On the
least provocation it discharges an inky cloud ; and

1. COMMON CUTTLE-FISH. 2. CALAMARY

( Upper and Under Sides.)

THE CUTTLE-FISH OR SEPIA.

91

when put into an aquarium, this creature, although
only a few inches in length, will in a second or two
darken all the water in a tank containing a thousand
gallons. The ink of this cuttle-fish was formerly
used in writing, and from it is formed the genuine
artists’ sepia. Fishermen in the south of England
when they catch cuttles for bait always cut out and
dry the ink-bag, which they afterwards sell to artists’
colourmen for the manufacture of this permanent
black.

Used in this country as bait, the cuttle in the
Mediterranean countries is prized as an article of food.

“ One of the most striking spectacles at night on
the coasts of the iEgean Sea,” says Professor Forbes,
“ is to see the numerous torches glancing along the
shores and reflected by the still and clear sea, borne
by poor fishermen paddling as silently as possible
over the rocky shallows in search of the cuttle-fish,
which when seen lying beneath the waters in wait
for its prey they dexterously spear ere the creature
has time to dart, with the rapidity of an arrow, from
the weapon about to transfix his soft but firm body.”

It is also fished by means of a dredge, and during
the month of March the fishermen use a living female
cuttle fastened to a rope, or an imitation formed of
wood and made attractive to the male sex by being

92

THE CUTTLE-FISH OR SEPIA.

ornamented with bits of glass. Fishing with either
of them is said to be both productive and amusing,
especially on a moonlight night.

They are also attracted by light; and Jonathan
Couch tells of a fisherman who was wont on dark
nights to hold a lighted lantern close to the water,
when immediately the cuttles gathered sufficiently
near the light to enable him to capture them readily
without bait or hook.

Until aquaria wTere established little was known
of the habits of this elegant creature. It has lived
in the famous aquarium at Brighton, and there Mr.
Henry Lee closely observed its ways.

“ It loves,” he says, “ the daylight, and the freedom
of the open sea. Its predatory acts are not those
of a concealed and ambushed brigand lying in wait
behind a rock or peeping furtively from within the
gloomy shadow of a cave, but it may better be com-
pared to the warlike Comanche vidette seated motion-
less on his horse, and scanning from some elevated
knoll a wide expanse of prairie in readiness to swoop
upon a weak or unarmed foe. Poised near the sur-
face of the water, like a hawk in the air, the sepia
moves gently to and fro in its tank by graceful

undulations of its lateral fins Only when some

small fish is given to it as food is its facility of rapid

THE CUTTLE-FISH OR SEPIA .

93

motion displayed. Then, quickly as a kingfisher darts
upon a minnow, it pounces on its prey, infolds it in
its fatal embrace, and retires to a recess of its abode
to tear it piecemeal with its horny beak, and rend it
into minutest shreds with its jagged tongue. In
shallow water, however, it will often rest for hours
on the bottom after a hearty meal, looking much like
a sleepy tortoise.”

The cuttle-fish, as has been already mentioned, has
two long and eight short arms or tentacles. That
these two kinds of limbs serve different purposes is
proved by the following circumstance, related of a
cuttle in an American aquarium : —

He had been without food for a month, when a
large-sized fish was put into the tank beside him. No
sooner had he perceived it, than with prodigious speed
and precision he unrolled and launched forward his
two long arms, seized the fish, and drew it towards
his mouth. The long arms were then retracted, and
disappeared, but the short ones wrapped themselves
closely around the body of the unfortunate fish, which
never made a movement after it was caught. The
sepia swam about in all directions for nearly an hour,
eating the while ; he then let the remains of the fish
drop to the bottom of the aquarium, having opened
the skull and devoured the brain as well as a por-

94

THE CUTTLE-FISH OR SEPIA .

tion of the muscles of the back. The long arms thus
seize the food, while the short ones afterwards hold it.

Small though the cuttle is, it does considerable
damage to the fisheries in districts where it is abun-
dant. Thus in some localities infested by them the
drift-net fishing has had to be abandoned owing to
their devouring the fish, or at least rendering them
unsaleable by tearing them with their parrot-like beak
as they hang from the meshes of the net.

It sometimes comes to grief through its rapid back-
ward motion, especially when close to the shore in
calm weather. “Not a ripple,” says Professor Forbes,
“breaks upon the pebbles to warn it that the shore
is near. An enemy appears : the creature ejects its
ink, like a sharpshooter discharging his rifle ere he
retreats ; and then darting away, tail foremost, under
cover of the cloud, grounds itself high upon the beach
and perishes there.”

The cuttle is too elegant and too small — although a
Chinese species is said to have a “ bone ” nearly two
feet in length — to have been ever developed, even by
the most imaginative of mankind, into the monstrous
kraken.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE OCTOPUS.

The octopus, which forms the second type of those
head-footed molluscs, is more likely than the cuttle-
fish to have formed the counterpart in nature of the
Scandinavian monster. Its powerful suckers, the ser-
pent-like motion and enormous strength of its arms,
its considerable size, and above all its hideous appear-
ance, are well calculated to impress the superstitious.

The octopus, as its name implies, has only eight
tentacles, and these all of the same size. Each of
them is provided with one hundred and twenty pairs
of suckers, every one of the latter more perfect than
our best cupping-glasses. “ If the poulpe,” as the
octopus is also called, “ but touch its prey, it is
enough ; once a few of those tenacious suckers get
firm hold, the swiftness of the fish is unavailing, as it
is soon trammelled on all sides by the firmly-holding
tentacles, and dragged to the mouth of its de-
stroyer.”

96

THE OCTOPUS.

The octopus is a night feeder, sheltering itself from
the light of day and from observation in the crannies
of submarine rocks, and stalking forth at night in
search of the fish, crustaceans, and molluscs which form
its prey. It retreats to its former hiding-place in the
morning — a circumstance which enabled one indi-
vidual to make depredations on various tanks in the
Brighton Aquarium without detection or even sus-
picion for some time. At length, having grown care-
less, it one night so gorged itself with the young lump-
fishes in an adjoining tank that it wTas unable to go
home, and so was caught next morning “ red-handed.”

One of the best accounts of the habits of the
octopus is that given by Lord in his “ Naturalist in
British Columbia:” —

“ The ordinary resting-place of this hideous sea-
beast w as,” he says, “ under a large stone, or in the
wide cleft of a rock, wThere an octopus can creep and
squeeze itself with the flatness of a sand-dab or the
slipperiness of an eel. Its modes of locomotion are
curious and varied : using the eight arms as paddles,
and working them alternately, the central disk repre-
senting a boat, octopuses row themselves along with
an ease and celerity comparable to the many-oared
caique that glides over the tranquil waters of the
Bosphorus. They can ramble at will over the sandy

THE OCTOPUS.

97

roadways intersecting their submarine parks, and, con-
verting arms into legs, march on like a huge spider.
Gymnasts of the highest order, they climb the slip-
pery ledges as flies walk up a window-pane; attaching
the countless suckers that arm the terrible limbs to
the face of the rocks, or to the wrack and sea-weed,
they go about back downward, like marine sloths, or,
clinging with one arm to the waving algse, perform a
series of trapeze movements that Leotard might view
with envy.

“ I do not think, in its native element, an octopus
often catches prey on the ground or on the rocks,
but waits for them just as the spider does, only the
octopus converts itself into a web, and a fearful one
too. Fastening one arm to a stout stalk of the great
sea-wrack, stiffening out the other seven, one would
hardly know it from the wrack amongst which it is
concealed. Patiently it bides its time, until pres-
ently a shoal of fish comes gaily on. Two or three of
them rub against the arms. Fatal touch ! As though
a powerful electric shock had passed through the fish
and suddenly knocked it senseless, so does the arm of
the octopus paralyze its victim ; then winding a great
sucker -clad cable round the palsied fish, it draws
the dainty morsel to the centre of the disk, when the
beaked mouth seizes and soon sucks it in,

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7

98

THE OCTOPUS .

“ I am perfectly sure, from frequent observations,
the octopus has the power of numbing its prey ; and
the sucking disks along each ray are more for the
purposes of climbing and holding on whilst fishing
than for capturing and detaining its slippery pris-
oners.

“ The Indian looks upon the octopus as an aider-
man does on turtle, and devours it with equal gusto
and relish, only the savage roasts the glutinous car-
cass instead of boiling it.

“ His mode of catching octopuses is crafty in the ex-
treme, for Redskin well knows, from past experience,
that were the octopus once to get some of its huge
arms over the side of the canoe, and at the same time
a holdfast on the wrack, it could as easily haul it over
as a child could upset a basket. Paddling the canoe
close to the rocks, and quietly pushing aside the
wrack, the savage peers through the crystal water
until his practised eye detects an octopus, with its
great rope-like arms stiffened out, waiting patiently
for food. His spear is twelve feet long, armed at the
end with four pieces of hard wood, made harder by
being baked and charred in the fire ; these project
about fourteen inches beyond the spear-haft, each
piece having a barb on one side, and are arranged in
a, circle round the spear-end, and lashed firmly on

THE OCTOPUS.

101

with cedar bark. Having spied out the octopus, the
hunter passes the spear carefully through the water
until within an inch or so of the centre disk, and then
sends it in as deep as he can plunge it. Writhing
with pain and passion, the octopus coils its terrible
arms round the haft. Redskin, making the side of his
canoe a fulcrum for his spear, keeps the struggling
monster well off, and raises it to the surface of the
water. It is dangerous now : if it could get a
hold-fast on either savage or canoe, nothing short
of chopping off the arms piecemeal would be of any
avail.

“ But the wily Redskin knows all this, and has
taken care to have another spear, unbarbed, long,
straight, smooth, and very sharp, and with this he
stabs the octopus where the arms join the central
disk. I suppose the spear must break down the
nervous ganglions supplying motive power, as the
stabbed arms lose at once strength and tenacity ; the
suckers, that a moment before held on with a force
ten men could not have overcome, relax, and the
entire ray hangs like a dead snake, a limp, lifeless
mass. And thus the Indian stabs and stabs, until the
octopus, deprived of all power to do harm, is dragged
into the canoe, a great, inert, quivering lump of brown-
looking jelly/5

102

THE OCTOPUS.

In the way above described the Indian avoids
coming to close quarters with the octopus.

The consequences of coming in contact with what
cannot have been a very large specimen have been
narrated by an American lady : —

“ While examining a reef on the coast of Brazil her
eyes fell on an object which roused her curiosity.
She could see nothing but a pair of very bright eyes,
but concluding that these must have an owner she
determined to secure him. Putting her hand down
quietly so as not to ruffle the water, to her surprise
it was suddenly seized with a pressure far too ardent
to be agreeable ! She tugged hard to get away ; but
the creature had as strong a hold on the rocks as it
had on her hand, and was not easily to be persuaded
to let go of either. At last, however, it became con-
vinced that it must make its choice, and so let go its
hold on the rocks, when the lady found a large
octopus clinging to her right hand ! His long arms
were wound around her hand, and attached to it by
the rows of suckers, so that escape from them was
almost impossible. Trying to disengage herself only
led to the rascal disengaging one of his numerous limbs,
which he then proceeded to wind around her left arm,
thus making her a helpless prisoner. The more she
struggled the tighter did he clasp her. In vain she

THE OCTOPUS .

103

shouted to her companion, who had wandered out of
hearing. Momentarily she expected to be bitten,
when suddenly the creature thought better of it, and
relinquishing her hand dropped on the sand. Then
raising himself on his long, slimy arms, he stalked
away towards the water, cutting such a comical figure
as made the frightened lady laugh. ‘ He looked/ she
says, ‘ like a huge and very tipsy spider, staggering
away on his exceedingly long legs.’ ”

An encounter somewhat more alarming was that
wdiich Mr. Beale had with an octopus when collecting
shells among the rocks of the Bonin Islands, and of
which Mr. Gosse gives the following account : —

“ He wTas much astonished at seeing at his feet a
most extraordinary-looking animal crawling towards
the surf, which it had only just left. It was creeping
on its eight legs, which, from their soft and flexible
nature, bent considerably under the weight of its
body, so that it was lifted up by the efforts of its
tentacula only a small distance from the rocks. It
appeared much alarmed at seeing him, and made every
effort to escape.

“ Mr. Beale endeavoured to stop it by pressing on
one of its legs with his foot ; but although he used
considerable force for that purpose, its strength was
so great that it several times liberated its member, in

104

THE OCTOPUS.

spite of all the efforts he could employ on the wet and
slippery rocks. He then laid hold of one of the
tentacles with his hand, and held it firmly, so that it
appeared as if the limb would be torn asunder by the
united efforts of himself and the creature. He then
gave it a powerful jerk, wishing to disentangle it
from the rocks to which it clung so forcibly by its
suckers.

“ This effort it effectually resisted ; but the moment
after, the apparently enraged animal lifted its head,
with its large projecting eyes, and, loosing its hold of
the rocks, suddenly sprang upon Mr. Beale’s arm
(which he had previously bared to the shoulder for
the purpose of thrusting it into holes in the rocks
after shells), and clung to it by means of its suckers
with great power, endeavouring to get its beak, which
could now be seen between the roots of its arms, in a
position to bite.

“ A sensation of horror pervaded his whole frame
when he found that this monstrous animal had fixed
itself so firmly on his arm. He describes its cold,
slimy grasp as extremely sickening ; and he loudly
called to the captain, who was engaged at some dis-
tance, to come and release him of his disgusting assail-
ant. The captain quickly came, and taking him down
to the boat, during which time Mr. Beale was em-

THE OCTOPUS.

105

ployed in keeping the beak of the octopus away from
his hand, soon released him by destroying his tormentor
with the boat-knife, when he disengaged it by portions
at a time.

“ This cephalopod measured across its expanded
arms about four feet, while its body was not bigger
than a man’s fist.”

The octopus found on the British coasts is compara-
tively small, the largest known to Mr. Lee having had
arms two feet six inches in length. Such a creature
would prove dangerous to bathers, as the following
incident which happened lately will show : —

A retriever dog was disporting himself in the sea
at Scarborough, when he was chased out of the water
by a large octopus. While endeavouring to make its
way back to deeper water the monster was captured.
On being taken up some steps by a fisherman, the
creature embraced him by his leg, and actually pulled
him down, so it may fairly be presumed that it would
have fared ill with the dog had the octopus succeeded
in seizing it. The monster was found to be four feet
in length, two feet in circumference, and weighed
forty-two pounds. Fortunately the octopus can be
made to relax its hold by grasping it tightly round
the throat.

106

THE OCTOPUS.

If these home-forms are formidable, still more so
are the much larger devil-fish that occur in the Medi-
terranean and other seas, and Italian divers and
bathers have a wholesome dread of them. An English
shell-collector at Leghorn states that in crevices of
the sea-wall forming the harbour of that town there
lie concealed great octopods having arms four feet
in length, and each at their base as thick as a
man’s wrist. In collecting shells he had to pass over
the masonry beneath which one of those creatures
lurked, and he states that, although no coward, he
was for some time afraid to pass the spot, the octopus
usually thrusting out one or two of its formidable
arms in its endeavour to catch hold of him.

It is to bathers and divers, however, that the
octopus forms a source of real danger, and numerous
instances are on record of lives lost in this way. Sir
Grenville Temple tells of a Sardinian captain, who,
when bathing at Jerbet, felt one of his feet grasped
by the arm of an octopus. On trying to disengage
himself by his other foot, that, too, was seized by an-
other of the monster’s arms. He then endeavoured to
free himself with his hands, but they also were grasped
and rendered powerless. Thus helpless, the poor cap-
tain was drowned, his body being afterwards found in
the deadly embrace of his many-armed enemy.

THE OCTOPUS .

107

These creatures abound off the coast of Algeria,
where their capture forms a regular fishery. They
are taken in deep water by means of earthen jars
strung together and lowered to the bottom of the
sea, where they are allowed to remain for a cer-
tain number of hours, and into which the animals in-
troduce themselves. Frequently from eight to ten
are taken from every jar at each visit of the fisher-
men. In less deep water earthenware drain-pipes
are placed side by side for distances frequently ex-
ceeding half a mile in length, and into these also
the octopods enter, and are taken by the fishermen.
As they are attracted by white, and by all smooth
and bright substances, the natives deck places in the
creeks and hollows in the rock with white stones and
shells, over which the poulpes spread themselves, and
are caught from four to eight at a time.

Although thus a source of profit to the fishermen,
they are no less a source of danger to bathers on the
coast, as the following incident, related by the author
of “ The French in Algiers,” shows.

“ The soldiers,” he says, “ were in the habit of
bathing in the sea every evening ; and from time to
time several of them disappeared, no one knew how.
Bathing was, in consequence, strictly forbidden ; in
spite of which several men went into the water one

108

THE OCTOPUS.

evening. Suddenly one of them screamed for help,
and when several others rushed to his assistance, they
found that an octopus had seized him by the leg with
four of its arms, whilst it clung to the rock with the
rest. The soldiers brought the monster home with
them, and out of revenge they boiled it alive and ate
it. This adventure fully accounted for the disap-
pearance of the other soldiers/’

It is well known that a gigantic species of devil-
fish lives in the waters of the Pacific coasts with arms
at least five feet in length. The Weekly Oregonian
of September 1877 records the fact that an Indian
woman, while bathing, was pulled beneath the surface
of the water by an octopus and drowned. The body
was discovered the following day on the bottom of
the bay in the embrace of the monster. Indians
dived down, and with their knives severed the ten-
tacles of the octopus and rescued the body. This
was said to have been the first known instance of
death from this cause in the locality ; but there had
been several narrow escapes.

A very narrow escape was that made by a diver
at work on the wreck of a sunken steamer off the
coast of Florida. The man — a powerful Irishman —
was quite paralyzed in its grasp. He felt, as he
himself expressed it, both his armour and himself

THE OCTOPUS.

109

being cracked into a jelly. He was just being
brought to the surface, or otherwise the creature
would have killed him, for he was suffering so
severely from the terrible embrace that he had lost
all power of motion. When dragged into the raft
from which he had descended, and finally released,
he fainted away. The men on the raft seized the
animal by one of its arms and tried to pull it off ; but
they were unable to overcome the adhesive power of
a single sucker. They at length succeeded in remov-
ing the monster by dealing it a heavy blow across its
baggy body. The latter was described as standing
stiffly up above the eyes, which gleamed like fire.

In certain of the South Sea Islands the natives are
in the habit of diving for octopods ; but they are usu-
ally accompanied by some one, in case of assistance
being required. A missionary among the Harvey
islanders tells how a servant of his on one occasion
went diving for those animals, leaving his son in
charge of the canoe. On rising shortly after to the
surface, his arms were free, but his mouth and nos-
trils were completely covered by a large octopus.
Had his son not torn the living plaster from his
face, he would no doubt have been suffocated — a fate
which is said to have befallen another native who,
some years before, went diving alone.

110

THE OCTOPUS.

The following thrilling adventure with an octopus
is the most recent one of the kind known to us : —

On November 4th, 1879, a Government diver was
at work at the bottom of the tideway of the river
Moyne, Melbourne. Having placed a charge of dyna-
mite between two large stones, he came up and ex-
ploded it ; and on descending again, found one of the
large stones thrown out, which he sent up, and then
hooked on the other, but could not start it. Hav-
ing descended again, the current being pretty strong
at the time, he stretched himself out on the stone,
and reached his right arm down to feel if he could
get another small charge under it, not being able
to do this in any other position. “ My arm,” he
says, “ was scarcely down, however, before I found it
was held by something ; and the action of the water
was stirring up the loose clay, and therefore I could
not see distinctly for a few minutes. But when it
did clear away, I saw to my horror the arm of a
large octopus entwined round mine like a boa-con-
strictor ; and just then he fixed some of his suckers
on the back of my hand, and the pain was intense.
I felt as if my hand were being pulled to pieces, and
the more I tried to take it away the greater the pain
became ; and from past experience I knew this
method would be useless. But what was I to do

THE OCTOPUS.

Ill

lying in this position ? I had the greatest difficulty
in keeping my feet down, as the air rushed along
the interior of my dress and inflated it ; and if my
feet had got uppermost, I should have become insen-
sible, held in such a position ; and if I had given
the signal to be pulled up, the brute would have
held on, and the chances would have been that I
should have had a broken arm. I had a hammer
down by me, but could not reach it to use it on the
brute. There was a small iron bar not far from me,
and with my feet I dragged this along until I could
reach it with my left hand. And now the fight
commenced. The more I struck him the tighter he
squeezed, until my arm got quite benumbed ; but
after a while I found the grip began to relax a
little. But he held on until I had almost cut him
to pieces ; and then he relaxed his hold from the
rock, and I pulled him up.

“ I can assure you I was completely exhausted,
having been in that position for over twenty
minutes. I brought the animal up, or rather a
part of him. We laid him out, and he measured
eight feet across ; and I feel perfectly convinced
this fellow could have held down five or six men.
It is only when a person gets a grip from these
brutes that one realizes their strength ; and it was

112

THE OCTOPUS.

lucky for me that I was not an amateur, for I can
assure you that I had the greatest struggle to get
clear of it that I ever had with any animal under
water.”

Hideous and dangerous as the large octopods have
thus been proved to be, they give no ground for
believing in the existence of a devil-fish big enough
to take a three-masted vessel in its embrace. Such
was the “ colossal poulpe ” of He Montfort, the story
of which was told him by an old sea-captain who
had settled at Dunkirk.

Once when sailing off the coast of Africa, Captain
Davis’s ship was becalmed for several days, and the
opportunity was taken to have its sides scraped and
cleaned, the sailors doing the work standing on
planks suspended along the ships side. They were
thus engaged, when one of those monsters threw an
arm around the bodies of two of the men and drew
them into the sea. It then threw a second arm
around another of the crew, who was in the act of
climbing the mast ; but, happily, getting entangled
among the ropes of the rigging, it failed to carry off
its third victim, who meanwhile uttered the most
piteous groans. The crew, coming to his assistance,
cut off the limb that held him ; but he was so
injured that he died soon after. Attacked by five

THE OCTOPUS.

113

harpoons, the octopus endeavoured to regain the
ocean depths with its two victims. This it succeeded
in doing after breaking the lines attached to the har-
poons buried in its body. The portion of the arm
which it left behind measured twenty-five feet long,
says De Montfort, was as thick as the mizzen-yard
at its base, and had suckers as large as pot-ladles.

Whatever truth there may be in the captain’s
story, and it is by no means improbable, the dimen-
sions of the creature have been grossly exaggerated
by De Montfort. That the octopus was not the
original of the legendary kraken may almost be
regarded as certain ; for it is too small, — it is never
known to have exceeded nine feet in length, — and
it does not bask on the surface of the sea as the
kraken is said to have done. The octopus, however,
is probably the counterpart in nature of the Ler-
nsean hydra of Grecian mythology. This mythical
creature was represented as having a huge body and
nine heads — eight mortal, and the ninth immortal.
This was the monster which Hercules set himself to
destroy. He tried cutting off its heads ; but this he
found was worse than useless, for two heads sprang
up for every one destroyed. Iolaus, however, who
drove his chariot, succeeded in stopping this multi-
plication by burning with torches the germs of the

(37) 8

114

THE OCTOPUS.

growing heads ; and finally Hercules succeeded in his
labour of killing the hydra.

The octopus is a familiar object to the modern
Greeks, and from the representations of it that have
been found on coins and other remains, it seems to
have been familiar to the ancient people who believed
in the legend of the hydra. Mycense is only a few
miles from Lerna, the scene of this famous labour
of Hercules, and there Schliemann found a gold
ornament with a figure of an octopus upon it, while
another ornament of gold took the form of this
hideous creature.

The mythical hydra and the real octopus have
sufficient in common to show that the one has given
rise to the other. The hydra had eight mortal
heads : the octopus has eight arms. The hydra occa-
sionally left its home in the marshes of Lerna, and
made a raid on the cattle in the open country : the
octopus has also the power of leaving the water. “ I
have seen an octopus,” says Mr. Henry Lee, “ travel
over the floor of a room at a very fair rate of speed,
toppling and sprawling along in its own ungainly
fashion.” The ancient Greeks knew of this habit of
the octopus, for Aristotle says they occasionally leave
the water and walk in stony places. Trebius, an-
other Greek, tells of -an octopus at Carteia that left

THE OCTOPUS.

115

the sea every evening to devour salt provisions. Its
continued thefts irritated the fishermen, who, to put
an end to them, surrounded their curing-yards with
elevated fences. It was all in vain, however, for
with the help of a tree the monster clambered over
them. The hydra, according to the legend, is said
to have twfisted itself round the feet of Hercules ;
and this is the mode by which the poulpe seeks to
overpower its prey. Further, when its heads were
cut oft" they grew again : this is likewise the case
with the arms of the octopus. These are peculiarly
liable to be bitten off by the toothed whales, the
conger eel, and other enemies which feed upon them.
When thus mutilated, however, the arms grow again ;
and there is hardly one of those creatures which has
not at least one or two of those reproductions, and
specimens have been seen in which all the arms had
been lost, but were then more or less restored. This
fact was likewise known to the ancients, who also
believed that when pressed by hunger they fed on
their own limbs, which on the return of better times
grew again.

CHAPTER IX.

THE CALAMARY OR SQUID.

The third kind o£ head-footed mollusc is represented
by the calamary or squid. Like the cuttle-fish, it has
ten arms, two of them much longer than the others ;
its body, however, is proportionately much longer
and narrower than in the other forms. Further, its
sides have got fin-like expansions, by means of
which it can progress through the water, although it
makes swiftest progress by the expulsion of water
from its funnel. It has not got “ a bone ” like the
cuttle, but it has a delicate horny shell lying inside
its body, which, from its general resemblance to a
quill, has been called the “ pen.” Like the others, it
has got an ink-bag ; and on this account the fisher-
men in the south of England call them “ pen-and-
ink ” fish. These “ pens,” according to Owen, multi-
ply with age, so that in an old squid quite a number
may be found lying closely packed one behind the
other.

THE CAL AM ARY OR SQUID.

117

Although not much is seen of these creatures on
the coast, they are nevertheless very numerous in the
open sea, where they move about in vast shoals. On
the 10th January 1858 a Dutch ship sailed for two
hours through dead squids which covered the surface
of the sea as far as the eye of the look-out could
reach. They are the choice food of the spermaceti
and other toothed whales, and Mr. Yrolik found no
fewer than ten thousand beaks of the squid in the
stomach of a single whale which he examined. Captain
Francis Post says that whales in the agony of death
frequently eject from their stomach large quantities
of squid.

The calamaries are excellent leapers. One of them
has earned from the sailors the name of sea-arrow, or
flying squid, from its habit of leaping out of the
water. They have thus been known to leap in calm
weather to such a height as to fall on the decks of
vessels.

Gould thus describes their movements: — “ Their
usual mode of swimming is by dilating the water-
breathing chamber of their sac-shaped body and filling
it with water. The body is then suddenly contracted
and the water forcibly ejected, so as to propel them
backwards with great rapidity. So swift and straight
is their progress that they look like arrows shooting

118

THE CAL AM ARY OR SQUID.

through the water. Whenever they strike the shore
they commence pumping the water with increased
violence, while every effort only tends to throw them
still farther upon the sands until they are left high
and dry.

“ They devour immense numbers of small fish, and
it is amusing to watch their movements, and see how
at a distance of several feet they will poise them-
selves, and in an instant, with the rapidity of light-
ning, their prey is seized in their long arms and
instantaneously devoured.”

Professor Verrill tells how he watched the squids
capturing and devouring young mackerel in the
wharves of Provincetown, Massachusetts. In attack-
ing the mackerel, which were swimming about in
shoals, they would suddenly dart backward among
the fish with the velocity of an arrow, and then as
suddenly turn to the right or the left and seize a fish,
which was almost instantly killed by a bite in the
back of the neck with their sharp beaks. The bite
was always made in the same place, cutting out a
triangular piece of flesh, and was deep enough to
penetrate to the spinal cord. The attacks were not
always successful, and were sometimes repeated a
dozen times before one of these active and wary fishes
could be caught. Sometimes, after making several

THE CAL AM ARY OR SQUID.

119

unsuccessful attempts, one of the squids would suddenly
drop to the bottom and there change its colour to
that of the sand, on which it rested so perfectly as to
be almost invisible. In this way it would wait until
the fishes came back, and when they were swimming
close to or over the ambuscade, the squid, by a sudden
dart, would be pretty sure to secure a fish. Ordinarily
when swimming they were thickly spotted with red
and brown, but when darting among the mackerel
they appeared translucent and pale. The mackerel,
however, seem to have learned that the shallow water
is the safest for them, and would hug the shore as
closely as possible, so that in pursuing them many of
the squids became stranded and perished by hundreds.
When thus stranded, they usually discharge their ink
in large quantities.

Nowhere do squids occur in greater abundance
than off Newfoundland, where they are used most
extensively as bait, nearly half of all the cod taken
on the “ Banks ” being fished with them. They appear
in vast shoals off the Newfoundland coast in August
and September, when a whole fleet of boats engage in
their capture. During violent gales of wind at that
season hundreds of tons of them are cast up on
the shore, where their decayed bodies pollute the
atmosphere.

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THE CAL AM ARY OR SQUID.

The method of capturing the squid is known as
jigging — a jigger being a number of hooks radiating
from a fixed centre. No bait is used. The jigger is
simply allowed to sink to the bottom, where it is con-
stantly kept moving up and down till the squid is
felt upon it. The animal merely clasps his arms
around this hooked instrument, when doubtless the
pain from the sharp pins induces him to retreat
instantly. The fisherman, however, who is constantly
jerking his jigger up and down, pulls in as rapidly as
possible, entangling the creature’s arms among the
pins, and drawing him through the water so fast that
escape is impossible. The moment he emerges from
the water he contracts his body and discharges through
his funnel a jet of salt water. Again the body is
contracted, and this time the squid ejects from the
same aperture a stream of black inky fluid. Not
unfrequently the luckless fisherman has not the squid
unhooked before this discharge takes place, and may
then receive the inky stream full in the face.

The scene when the squids are abundant is described
as really exciting, the streams rising here and there
in twenty directions pointing out the rapidity of the
catch. The number of these animals used by a single
fishing-vessel in two months is enormous. Captain
Osborne states that his vessel used in the course of

THE CAL AM ARY OR SQUID.

121

six weeks eighty thousand squids as bait in the cod
fishery.

According to Professor Verrill, squids in Newfound-
land are often found stranded in the morning on the
beach in immense numbers, especially when there is
full moon, and it is thought by many of the fishermen
that this is because they have the habit of turning
towards and gazing at a bright light, and since they
swim backwards they get ashore opposite the position
of the moon. This habit, he states, is also sometimes
taken advantage of by the fishermen who capture
them for bait. They go out on dark nights with
torches in their boats, and by advancing slowly towards
a beach drive them ashore. The Japanese have an
extensive squid fishery, and they make use of lights
in order to attract the fish to the surface, when they
“jig” them.

The South Sea Islanders have a still more curious
contrivance for capturing cuttle-fish. It consists of a
thin piece of wood, a foot in length, and round and
polished. Near one end of it a number of beautiful
bits of cowrie-shell are fastened, one over the other
like the scales of a fish, until it is about the size of a
turkey’s egg. This is suspended horizontally by a
strong line and let down to the bottom over the side
of the canoe. The fisherman jerks the line, and the

122

THE CAL AM ARY OR SQUID.

shells move as if they were alive. The cuttle-fish,
attracted by the bright cowries, darts out its arms
one after another upon it, until these get quite en-
tangled in the openings between the different pieces
of shell. Then the fisherman quickly pulls the whole
apparatus up into the canoe, and the cuttle-fish is
secured.

CHAPTER X.

GIANT CUTTLE-FISHES.

There are altogether about seventy kinds of squids
known, and these include forms so minute as not to
measure when full grown more than two inches, and
others so large as to be classed among the giants of
creation. It is only during the last few years that
the existence of giant cuttle-fishes has been put
beyond all doubt by their capture and preservation.

There are preserved in one of the London museums
portions of a cuttle-fish which Professor Owen estimates
must have had a total length of about seven feet. It
was picked up floating dead in 1769 by the naturalists
on board a vessel in which the afterwards famous
Captain Cook was lieutenant, and was being fed upon
by sea-birds. Part of it they preserved in spirits, and
part of it they ate, for they state that it made one of
the best soups they ever tasted. Instead of suckers,
its arms were furnished with two rows of sharp
talons like those of a cat.

124

GIANT CUTTLE-FISHES.

The French voyager and naturalist Peron saw at
sea in 1801 a huge calamary, its body the size of a
barrel, rolling with noise on the waves. Its arms
were about seven feet long and about as many inches
in diameter at the base. These were extended on the
surface, and writhed about like great snakes.

In 1854 a large specimen was stranded on the
Danish coast. The fishermen cut it to pieces to bait
their lines, and the body was said to have furnished
them with several barrow-loads, the beak of the animal
being nine inches long.

A few years later the mutilated carcass of another
huge calamary was stranded on the coast of Shetland.
Its body measured seven feet in length, each of its
ordinary arms eight feet, and its two long tentacles
no less than sixteen feet each.

Within a year after the finding of this carcass on
the Scottish coast the crew of a French corvette had
the good fortune to encounter a live example of one
of those head-footed giants. It was on the 30 th
November 1861 that the French steamer Alecton,
commanded by Lieutenant Bouyer, encountered be-
tween Madeira and Teneriffe an enormous calamary,
which was swimming on the surface of the water.
The animal measured from sixteen to eighteen feet in
length, without taking into account the formidable

GIANT CUTTLE-FISHES.

125

arms covered with cups which surrounded its head.
Its colour was brick red, its eyes enormously big and
frightfully fixed. Its mouth — like the beak of a
parrot — could be opened to the extent of eighteen
inches. Its long body presented an enormous mass,
the weight of which was estimated at four thousand
four hundred pounds. Its fins, placed at the hind
end, were rounded in two fleshy lobes, and of very
large size.

The commander of the vessel, upon perceiving it,
halted upon his course and made preparations for
capturing the monster. Guns were charged and
harpoons hastily prepared, but at the first discharge
of the former the animal dived under the ship and
immediately appeared on the other side. Attacked
again with harpoons, it disappeared two or three times,
and each time that it rose to the surface its long arms
writhed. The ship’s course was directed according to
the movements of the animal. The chase lasted more
than three hours. The commander of the Alecton
was determined to capture this new enemy ; neverthe-
less he did not venture to lower a boat, for a single
arm of this cuttle-fish might have overturned it. The
harpoons thrown at it penetrated the flabby flesh and
came out without success. Several balls also traversed
it unsuccessfully. Nevertheless it received one which

126

GIANT CUTTLE-FISHES.

seemed to wound it badly, causing it to vomit a great
deal of frothy matter and blood, which spread a strong
odour of musk. It was then that they succeeded in
lassoing the animal, but the rope slipped along the
elastic body until it was arrested by the fins. Attempt-
ing to haul their prize on board, they had already
raised a great part of the animal from the water,
when its enormous weight caused the rope to penetrate
the flesh and so to separate the hinder portion of the
body, which was drawn on board, while the remainder
disappeared beneath the waters. The part taken on
board was not preserved, so that nothing remains of
this monster but the story of its encounter as told by
the officers of the vessel.

Much more satisfactory in this respect is the
evidence now to be adduced. It comes from New-
foundland, where, as already stated, squids of small
dimensions are so common as to form a regular
fishery.

In 1873, three fishermen, when plying their voca-
tion off the Newfoundland coast, saw a shapeless mass
floating on the water near them, and thinking it
might prove part of the cargo of a shipwrecked vessel,
they rowed up to and struck it with their boat-hook.
In an instant, says the Rev. Mr. Harvey, to whom
science is indebted for the story, the dark mass

GIANT CUTTLE-FISHES.

127

became animated, and opening out like a large
umbrella displayed to view a pair of ghastly green
eyes of enormous size, which glared at them with
apparent ferocity, its huge parrot-like beak opening
in a savage and threatening manner. Before the
men had sufficiently recovered their presence of mind
to think of endeavouring to escape, the creature shot
out several of its long fleshy arms towards their boat,
and two of these had already laid firm hold of it,
when one of the fishermen seizing a hatchet succeeded
in lopping them off.

Finding itself wounded, the monster withdrew,
blackening the water as it went by the emission of
its inky fluid, while the fishermen made for the
harbour with the two trophies of their encounter.
One of these was destroyed before Mr. Harvey reached
the scene; the other measured nineteen feet in length,
— six feet of it, however, had been previously cut off,
while the fishermen calculated that about ten feet
more had been left on the monster. The entire
tentacle must, therefore, have measured from thirty
to forty feet in length ; and if twenty feet be added
for the body, we have this gigantic mollusc rivalling
in length an ordinary whale. It was one of the two
long arms that was secured, and this was found to be
studded over with no fewer than one hundred and

128

GIANT CUTTLE-FISHES.

eighty cup -like suckers, some of them an inch and' a
quarter in diameter.

News reached this country about the same time
that a great cuttle-fish had seized a fishing-boat off
the coast of Japan. By repeated blows the fisherman
succeeded in killing the monster. It was taken
ashore and exhibited, its body measuring sixteen feet
and its arms five feet in length. In their drawings,
ivory carvings, etc., the Japanese show that they have
long been practically acquainted with giant cuttle-
fishes. Thus in a Japanese show described by Mr.
Laurence Oliphant there was, he says, on exhibition a
series of groups of figures carved in wood the size of
life, and as cleverly coloured as Madame Tussaud’s
wax-works. One of these was a group of women
bathing in the sea. One of them had been caught in
the folds of a cuttle-fish; the others in alarm were
escaping, leaving their companion to her fate. The
cuttle-fish was represented on a huge scale, its eyes,
eyelids, and mouth being made to move simultaneously
by a man inside the head. Both in drawings and in
ivory carvings the Japanese have depicted encounters
between these monsters and boatmen.

To return to Newfoundland. Soon after the en-
counter already described, a second gigantic cuttle-fish,
not much inferior in size to the first, was caught by

TENTACLES OF GIGANTIC CALAMARY, FROM LOGIE BAY, NEWFOUNDLAND.

GIANT CUTTLE-FISHES.

131

three fishermen in Logie Bay. Its arms had got en-
tangled in the meshes of the herring-nets ; and although
thus comparatively helpless, it was only after a severe
struggle, and when they had severed the monster’s
head from its body, that they succeeded in landing
their “ sea-devil,” as the Americans call those creatures.
Its body was found to be eight feet in length and
five feet in girth, while its longest arms measured
twenty-four feet. Its parrot-like beak was as big as
a man’s fist, and the socket of its fishy eyes had a dia-
meter of four inches.

In further describing this specimen, Mr. Harvey
says there are about eighty suckers on each long arm,
which tapers to a very fine point. Each of the eight
short arms is six feet in length, and at the point of
junction with the head is nine inches in circumference.
They taper to a point, and on the under side are en-
tirely covered with a double row of powerful suckers
one inch and a quarter in diameter, each having a
sharp denticulated edge, and a membrane in the centre
which the creature can retract at pleasure, and thus
create a vacuum.

The entire specimen was taken to St. John’s, New-
foundland, where it was photographed, and the huge
carcass preserved.

Mr. Harvey has obtained evidence of other gigantic

132

GIANT CUTTLE-FISHES.

cuttles that had been observed previously to those
just described, and especially of one stranded in 1872,
which in total length measured no less than eighty
feet. A specimen was also taken alive in the shallow
water of Coombe’s Cove, Fortune Bay, in the same
year. Its body measured ten feet in length, while
the length of one of its ordinary arms was six feet/
and of each of its tentacles forty-two feet.

In 1877 a huge squid was cast ashore alive in
Catalina Bay, and was afterwards conveyed in brine
to the New York Aquarium. It is the largest and
best specimen yet preserved, its body measuring nine
and a half feet in length and seven feet in circum-
ference, while its pair of long arms measured thirty
feet each. The upper part of its beak was half a foot
in length, while the socket of its eyes measured no
less than eight inches across.

During the same year another fine specimen came
ashore in Trinity Bay. It had been borne in by a
spring-tide, and when first seen was struggling des-
perately to escape from the shallow water. “ In its
struggles,” says the writer of the account, “ it ploughed
up a trench or furrow about thirty feet long, and of
considerable depth, by means of the stream of water
that it ejected with great force from its siphon.”

A year later, another monster devil-fish was encoun-

GIANT CUTTLE-FISHES.

133

tered by Newfoundland fishermen not far from the
shore. It had, like the preceding one, got into shallow
water, and was making desperate efforts to escape,
churning the water into foam by the motion of its
arms and body, and in its excitement discolouring the
surrounding sea by the emission of its inky secretion.
Finding it thus partially disabled, the seamen ap-
proached sufficiently near to throw upon it the grap-
nel of their boat, the barbed flukes of which sank into
its molluscous body. Proceeding to the shore with
the rope attached to the grapnel, they fixed it to a
tree, and thus moored the briny monster to the shore.
“ His struggles,” says Mr. Harvey, “ were terrific, as
he flung his ten arms about in dying agony.” This
specimen, which appears to have been the largest yet
seen, measuring about fifty-five feet from tip of arm
to extremity of body, was not preserved, the fisher-
men cutting it up for dogs’ meat.

Another specimen, nearly thirty-eight feet in length,
was caught in December 1879 ; while the latest re-
corded capture was made in November 1881. It
measured only twenty-eight feet, and was taken in
Portugal Bay, from which it was conveyed to New
York, encased in ice.

The specimen found stranded on the coast of Shet-
land remained the largest recorded British cuttle-fish

134

GIANT CUTTLE-FISHES.

until 1875, when a much bigger one was captured off'
the coast of Connemara in Ireland. The following is
the account given of the capture in the Zoologist : —

“ Having shot their long lines in the morning, the
fishermen observed to seaward a great floating mass
surrounded by gulls. They pulled out, believing it to
be a wreck, but to their great astonishment found it to
be a cuttle-fish of enormous proportions, and lying per-
fectly still, as if basking on the surface of the water.

“A knife was the only weapon on board. The
cuttle is much prized as a bait for coarse fish, and the
crew resolved to secure at least a portion of it. Con-
sidering the great size of the monster, and knowing
the crushing and holding powers of the arms, open
hostility could not be resorted to, and the fishermen
shaped their tactics differently.

“ Paddling up with caution, a single arm was sud-
denly seized and lopped off. The cuttle, hitherto at
rest, became dangerously active now, and set out to
sea at full speed in a cloud of spray, rushing through
the water at a tremendous rate. The canoe imme-
diately gave chase, and was up again with the enemy
after three quarters of a mile. Hanging on the rear
of the fish, a single arm was attacked in turn, while
it took all the skill of the men to keep out of the
deadly clutch of the suckers. The battle thus con-

GIANT CALAMARY AFLOAT.

n

GIANT CUTTLE-FISHES.

137

tinued for two hours, and while direct conflict was
avoided, the animal was gradually being deprived of
its offensive weapons. Five miles out on the open
Atlantic, in their frail canvas craft, the boatmen still
slashed away, holding on boldly by the stranger, and
steadily cutting down its powers. By this time the
prize was partially subdued, and the canoe closed in
fairly with the monster. Such as remained of the
ten great arms slashed around through the air and
water in most dangerous but unavailing fashion. The
trunk of the fish lay alongside, fully as long as the
canoe ; while in its extremity the mutilated animal
emitted successive jets of fluid, which darkened the
sea for fathoms around. The head at last was severed
from the body, which was unmanageable from its
great weight, and sank like lead to the bottom of the
sea.

“ Of the portions of the mollusc taken ashore, two
of the great arms are intact, and measure eight feet
each in length, and fifteen inches round the base. The
two tentacles attain a length of thirty feet. The man-
dibles are about four inches across. The head, devoid
of all appendages, weighed about six stones, and the
eyes were about fifteen inches in diameter.5’

It is evident from the supine condition of this mon-
ster that it was very sick or in a dying condition

138

GIANT CUTTLE-FISHES .

when attacked, otherwise it would have escaped cap-
ture readily by diving. Certain exaggerations in the
above account are due probably to the ignorance rather
than the invention of the captors.

Big though these calamaries are, they fall far short
of the kraken in this respect. There can be little
doubt, however, that on these giant squids as a founda-
tion of fact the old Norsemen built up that legendary
monster which, according to Pontoppidan, vras so large
that a whole regiment of soldiers was reported to have
been able to manoeuvre on its back.

THE END.

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