Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/360

346 helpless, you feel yourself slowly emptied into this frightful sac, which is a monster. To be eaten alive is more than terrible; but to be drunk alive is inexpressible!"

This overwrought but wonderfully dramatic description (but a small part of which we have quoted) at once excited a popular interest in the habits and history of the octopus, though it was well known and described by Aristotle before the Christian era. Moreover, the animal so

graphically pictured by the novelist was a mere "baby devil" in comparison with many which exist, and which have been described by that enthusiastic naturalist, Prof. Verrill, of Yale College.

In a letter addressed to me on this subject by Prof. Spencer F. Baird, under date of April 1, 1878, this distinguished naturalist says: "The giant squid in the New York Aquarium can only be designated as an infant or dwarf in comparison with the gigantic species of the Pacific Ocean—those upon which the sperm-whale is known to feed. Chunks of squid-remains are not infrequently found in the throat or stomach of the sperm-whale, apparently indicating specimens from ten to fifty times the size of the Newfoundland variety. I was informed that a considerably larger specimen than that at New York was cast ashore at Newfoundland later in the season. The arms of the latter, if I recollect right, were some ten feet longer than those of the other."

The specimen referred to by Prof. Baird, as at the public aquarium in New York, is of the species known as Architeuthis princeps. It measures about forty feet, and is preserved in alcohol. I have in a bottle some specimen portions of the sucking-disks, showing the serrated edges, from the arms of this terrible animal; and I have also a perfect specimen of a smaller species of the animal itself in my private collection.

Prof. Verrill's reports apply to the devil-fish found in our northern seas, and Prof. Baird mentions those cast ashore at Newfoundland; but