Excellent woodcuts from photographs of these two specimens were given in the “Field” of January 31st, 1874, and December 13th, 1873, respectively.
In the “American Journal of Science and Arts,” of March, 1875, Professor Verrill gives particulars of several other examples of great calamaries, varying in total length from 30 feet to 52 feet, which have been taken in the neighbourhood of Newfoundland since the year 1870.
The following account of the still more recent capture of a large squid off the west coast of Ireland was given in the “Zoologist” of June, 1875, by Sergeant Thomas O’Connor, of the Royal Irish Constabulary:—
“On the 26th of April, 1875, a very large calamary was met with on the north-west of Boffin Island, Connemara. The crew of a ‘curragh’ (a boat made like the ‘coracle,’ with wooden ribs covered with tarred canvas) observed to seaward a large floating mass, surrounded by gulls. They pulled out to it, believing it to be wreck, but to their astonishment found it was an enormous cuttle-fish, lying perfectly still, as if basking on the surface of the water. Paddling up with caution they lopped off one of its arms. The animal immediately set out to sea, rushing through the water at a tremendous pace. The men gave chase, and, after a hard pull in their frail canvas craft, came up with it, five miles out in the open Atlantic, and severed another of its arms and the head. These portions are now in the Dublin Museum. The shorter arms measure each 8 feet in length, and 15 inches round the base: the tentacular arms are said to have been 30 feet long. The body sank.”
Finally, there is in the basement chambers of the British Museum (irreverently called the “spirit vaults and bottle department,” because fish, mollusca, &c., in spirits are there deposited) a tall glass jar, in which is preserved a single arm of a huge cephalopod, which, by the kindness and courtesy of the officers of the department, I was permitted to examine and measure when I first described it, in May, 1873. It is 9 feet long, and 10 inches in circumference at the base, tapering gradually to a fine point. It has about 300 suckers, pedunculated, or set on tubular footstalks, placed alternately in two rows, and having serrated, horny rings, but no hooks; the diameter of the largest of these rings is half an inch; the smallest is not larger than a pin’s head. This is one of the eight shorter, or pedal, and not one of the long, or tentacular, arms of the calamary to which it belonged. Judging from the proportions of known examples, I estimate the length of the tentacles at 36 feet, and that of the body at from 11 to 12 feet: total length 48 feet. The beak would probably have been about 5 inches long from hinge socket to point. No history relating to it has been preserved; but Dr. Gray told me that he believed it came from the east coast of South America.
Here, then, in our midst, and to be seen by all who wish to inspect it, is, and has long been, a limb of a once-living cephalopod capable of upsetting a boat, or of hauling a man out of her, or of clutching one engaged in scraping a ship’s side, and dragging him under water, as described by the old master-mariner, Magnus Dens; possessing, also, a beak powerful enough to tear him in pieces, and crush some of his smaller bones. I confess that until I saw and measured this enormous limb, I doubted the accuracy of some early observations which this specimen alone would suffice to prove worthy of confidence. The existence of gigantic cephalopods is no longer an open question. I, now, more than ever, appreciate the value of the adage:
“Truth is stranger than fiction.”
THE END.
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.