The octopus

by Henry Lee

These are statements made by men who, by their intelligence, character, and position, are entitled to respect and credence, and whose evidence would be accepted without question or hesitation in any court of law. There is, moreover, a remarkable coincidence of particulars in their several accounts, which gives great importance to their combined testimony. The public, after being deceived by Pliny with his rapacious colossal polypus, and by Olaus Magnus, Pontoppidan and De Montfort with their fabulous or grossly exaggerated “Kraken,” leaped hastily across the path of truth from easy gullibility on the one hand to unreasoning incredulity on the other. “In medio tutissimus ibis” is a rule which may be safely applied to this case, as to many others. The accumulated weight of such aggregate testimony as had been adduced should, even if unsupported by confirmatory facts, have been sufficient to convince any thoughtful inquirer of the existence of very large cephalopods, individuals of which have occasionally been seen, and correctly described by some trustworthy observers, although absurdly exaggerated and misrepresented by others.

But fortunately, we are not left dependent on documentary evidence alone, nor with the option of accepting or rejecting, as caprice or prejudice may prompt us, the narratives of those who have told us they have seen what we have not. Cuttle-fishes of extraordinary size are preserved in several European museums. In the collection of the Faculty of Sciences at Montpellier is one six feet long, taken by fishermen at Cette, which Professor Steenstrup has identified as Ommastrephes pteropus. One of the same species, which was formerly in the possession of M. Eschricht, who received it from Marseilles, may be seen in the museum at Copenhagen. The body of another, analogous to these, is exhibited in the museum of Trieste. It was taken on the coast of Dalmatia. At the meeting of the British Association at Plymouth in 1841, Colonel Smith exhibited drawings of the beak and other parts of a very large calamary preserved at Haarlem; and M. P. Harting, in 1860, described in the Memoirs of the Royal Scientific Academy of Amsterdam portions of two extant in other collections in Holland, one of which he believes to be Steenstrup’s Architeuthis dux, a species which he regards as identical with Ommastrephes todarus of D’Orbigny. Dr. J. E. Gray scientifically described, many years ago, in his “Spicilegia Zoologica,” a specimen of Sepioteuthis major from the Cape of Good Hope, the body of which measured 27 inches, the head 6 inches, and the fins and body 7 inches each in breadth, and mentions one seen by Mrs. Graham, which had arms 28 feet long.

In the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons are portions of an Onychoteuthis or Enoploteuthis (a squid, the suckers of which are furnished with prehensile hooks), found floating by Drs. Banks and Solander between Cape Horn and the Polynesian Islands, and described as having been 6 feet in length, including the tentacular arms.[47] The lower portion of the body, with the fins attached, in a dried and shrunken condition, is 18 inches long; the beak, 3½ inches. A part of one of its arms, with the hooked suckers, is also to be seen, which, however, being only the tip of one, gives no clue to its entire length.

Still there remained a residuum of doubt in the minds of naturalists and the public concerning the existence of gigantic cuttle-fishes until, towards the close of the year 1873, two specimens were encountered on the coast of Newfoundland, and a portion of one and the whole of the other were brought ashore and preserved for examination by competent zoologists.

The circumstances under which the first was seen, as sensationally described by the Rev. M. Harvey, Presbyterian minister of St. John’s, Newfoundland, in a letter to Principal Dawson, of McGill College, were, briefly and soberly, as follows:—Two fishermen were out in a small punt on the 26th of October, 1873, near the eastern end of Belle Isle, Conception Bay, about nine miles from St. John’s. Observing some object floating on the water at a short distance they rowed towards it, supposing it to be the débris of a wreck. On reaching it one of the men struck it with his “gaff” when immediately it showed signs of life, and shot out its two tentacular arms, as if to seize its antagonists. One of the men severed both arms with an axe as they lay on the gunwale of the boat, whereupon the animal moved off, and ejected a quantity of inky fluid which darkened the surrounding water for a considerable distance.

The men went home and magnified their adventure. They “estimated” the body to have been 60 feet in length and 10 feet across the tail fin; and declared that when the “fish” attacked them “it reared a parrot-like beak which was as big as a six-gallon keg.”

All this Mr. Harvey appears to have been willing to believe, and relates without the expression of a doubt. Fortunately, he was able to obtain from the fishermen a portion of one of the tentacular arms which they had chopped off with the axe, and it is now in the St. John’s Museum. By careful calculation of its girth, the breadth and circumference of the expanded sucker-bearing portion at its extremity, and the diameter of the suckers, Professor Verrill, of Yale College, has computed its dimensions as follows:—Length of body 10 feet; diameter of body 2 feet 5 inches. Long tentacular arms 32 feet; head 2 feet—total length about 44 feet. The upper mandible of the beak, instead of being “as large as a six-gallon keg” would be about 3 inches long, and the lower mandible 1½ inch long. From the size of the large suckers relatively to those of another specimen to be presently described, he regards it as probable that this individual was a female.

In November, 1874,—about three weeks after the occurrence in Conception Bay—a calamary somewhat smaller than the preceding, but of the same species, also came into Mr. Harvey’s possession. Three fishermen, when hauling their herring-net in Logie bay, about three miles from St. John’s, found the huge animal entangled in its folds. With great difficulty they succeeded in despatching it and bringing it ashore, being compelled to cut off its head before they could get it into their boat.

The body of this specimen was over 7 feet long; the caudal fin 22 inches broad; the two long tentacular arms 24 feet in length; the eight shorter arms each 6 feet long, the largest of the latter being 10 inches in circumference at the base; total length of this calamary 32 feet. Professor Verrill considers that this and the Conception Bay squid are both referable to one species—Steenstrup’s Architeuthis dux.