Part 3

The _Sepia_, the owner of the broad, flattened bone, has a decided predilection for the vicinity of the shore, and for comparatively shallow water. It there attaches its grape-like eggs to some convenient stone or growing alga, and delights occasionally to sink to the bottom, and there to rest half covered by the sand, a habit for which the form of its body is well adapted. But the calamaries--they of the horny pen--prefer the wide waters of the open ocean; and although they, too, especially the smaller species, are common upon the coasts, they are frequently met with far out at sea, and away from any land. The elongated and almost arrow-like shape of their bodies enables them to glide through the water with great rapidity, and the momentum exerted by a vigorous out-rush from their syphon-tube is sometimes so great that when the opposite pressure thus produced is so exerted as to cause them to take an upward direction they leap out of the water to so great a height as to fall on the decks of ships; and are, therefore, called by sailors, "flying squids." Their spawn is very different from that of either octopus, or sepia. It consists of dozens of semi-transparent, gelatinous, slender, cylindrical sheaths, about four or five inches long, each containing many ova imbedded in it (making a total number of about 40,000 embryos), all springing from a common centre and resembling a mop without a handle. I have never seen any of these "sea-mops" attached to anything, and the pelagic habits of the calamaries render it probable that they are left floating on the surface of the sea.

Having made ourselves acquainted with the structure and habits of these three divisions of the eight-footed and ten-footed mollusks, let us take evidence as to the size to which they are respectively known to attain, and the degree in which they may be regarded as dangerous to man.

An octopus from our own coasts having arms two feet in length may be considered a rather large specimen; and Dr. J. E. Gray, who was always most kindly ready to place at the disposal of any sincere inquirer the vast store of knowledge laid up in his wonderful memory, told me that "there is not one in the British Museum which exceeds this size, or which would not go into a quart pot--body, arms and all." The largest British specimen I have hitherto seen had arms 2 ft. 6 in. long. We have sufficient evidence, however, that it exceeds this in the South of France, and along the Spanish and Italian coasts of the Mediterranean; and my deceased friend John Keast Lord tells us in his book, 'The Naturalist in British Columbia,' that he saw and measured, in Vancouver's Island, an octopus which had arms five feet long.

I have often been asked whether an octopus of the ordinary size can really be dangerous to bathers. Decidedly, "Yes," in certain situations. The holding power of its numerous suckers is enormous. It is almost impossible forcibly to detach it from its adhesion to a rock or the flat bottom of a tank; and if a large one happened to fix one or more of its strong, tough arms on the leg of a swimmer whilst the others held firmly to a rock, I doubt if the man could disengage himself under water by mere strength, before being exhausted. Fortunately the octopus can be made to relax its hold by grasping it tightly round the "throat" (if I may so call it), and it may be well that this should be known.

That men are occasionally drowned by these creatures is, unhappily, a fact too well attested. I have elsewhere[8] related several instances of this having occurred. Omitting those, I will give two or three others which have since come under my notice. Sir Grenville Temple, in his 'Excursions in the Mediterranean Sea,' tells how a Sardinian captain, whilst bathing at Jerbeh, was seized and drowned by an octopus. When his body was found, his limbs were bound together by the arms of the animal; and this took place in water only four feet deep.

[8] See 'The Octopus; or, the Devil-fish of Fiction and of Fact.' 1873. Chapman and Hall.

Mr. J. K. Lord's account of the formidable strength of these creatures in Oregon is confirmed by an incident recorded in the _Weekly Oregonian_ (the principal paper of Oregon) of October 6th, 1877. A few days before that date an Indian woman, whilst bathing, was held beneath the surface by an octopus, and drowned. The body was discovered on the following day in the horrid embrace of the creature. Indians dived down and with their knives severed the arms of the octopus and recovered the corpse.

Mr. Clemens Laming, in his book, 'The French in Algiers,' writes:--"The soldiers 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 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 by 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 accounted for the disappearance of the other soldiers."

The Rev. W. Wyatt Gill, who for more than a quarter of a century has resided as a missionary amongst the inhabitants of the Hervey Islands, and with whom I had the pleasure of conversing on this subject when he was in England in 1875, described in the _Leisure Hour_ of April 20th, 1872, another mode of attack by which an octopus might deprive a man of life. A servant of his went diving for "poulpes" (octopods), leaving his son in charge of the canoe. After a short time he rose to the surface, his arms free, but his nostrils and mouth completely covered by a large octopus. If his son had not promptly torn the living plaister from off his face he must have been suffocated--a fate which actually befell some years previously a man who foolishly went diving alone.

In _Appleton's American Journal of Science and Art_, January 31st, 1874, a correspondent describes an attack by an octopus on a diver who was at work on the wreck of a sunken steamer off the coast of Florida. The man, a powerful Irishman, was helpless in its grasp, and would have been drowned if he had not been quickly brought to the surface; for when dragged on to the raft from which he had descended, he fainted, and his companions were unable to pull the creature from its hold upon him until they had dealt it a sharp blow across its baggy body.

A similar incident occurred to the government diver of the colony of Victoria, Australia. Whilst pursuing his avocation in the estuary of the river Moyne he was seized by an octopus. He killed it by striking it with an iron bar, and brought to shore with him a portion of it with the arms more than three feet long.

Mr. Laurence Oliphant, in his 'China and Japan,' describes a Japanese show, which consisted of "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."

An attack of this kind is most artistically represented in a small Japanese ivory-carving in the possession of Mr. Bartlett, of the Zoological Gardens.[9]

[9] This carving was figured in illustration of an interesting paper by Professor Owen, C.B., F.R.S., &c., "On some new and rare Cephalopoda," in the Transactions of the Zoological Society, April 20, 1880.

The Japanese are well acquainted with the octopus; for it is commonly depicted on their ornaments, and forms no unimportant item in their fisheries.

I have recently had an opportunity of inspecting a most curious Japanese book, in the possession of my friend Mr. W. B. Tegetmeier, which is chiefly devoted to the representations of the fisheries and fish-curing processes of the country. It is in three volumes, and is entitled, 'Land and Sea Products,' by Ki Kone. It is evidently ancient, for it is slightly worm-eaten, but the plates, each 12 inches by 8 inches, are full of vigour. Two of these illustrate in a very interesting manner the subject before us, and by the kindness of Mr. Tegetmeier I am able to give facsimiles of them, which appeared with an article by him on this book, in the _Field_ of March 14th, 1874. Fig. 5 represents a fisherman in a boat out at sea: a gigantic octopus has thrown one of its arms over the side of the boat; the man, who is alone, has started forward from the stern of the boat, and has succeeded, by means of a large knife attached to a long handle, in lopping off the dangerous limb of his enemy. As Mr. Tegetmeier says, "From the extreme matter of fact manner in which all these engravings are made, and the total absence of exaggeration in any other representation, I cannot but regard the relative sizes of the man, the boat, and the octopus, as correctly given, in which case we have evidence of the existence of gigantic cephalopods in Japanese waters." The only doubt I have is whether the fisherman correctly described his assailant as an octopus, and whether it was not a calamary. Fig. 6 is a vivid picture of a fishmonger's shop in a market, under the awning of which may be seen two arms of a gigantic cuttle hung up for sale as food. These are evidently of most unusual size, judging from the action of the lookers on; the one to the left, with a tall stand or case on his back, like a Parisian cocoa-vendor, is holding out his hand in mute astonishment; whilst the attention of the smaller personage in the right-hand corner is directed to the suspended arms of the cuttle by the man nearest to him, who is pointing to them with upraised hand. In another plate in this most interesting work a Japanese mode of fishing for cuttles is delineated. A man in a boat is tossing crabs, one at a time, into the sea, and when a cuttle rises at the bait he spears it with a trident and tosses it into the boat.

The octopus, therefore, though not abundant on our own coasts, is found in every sea in the temperate zone; and in so far as that it secretes an ink with which it can render the water turbid, and has many radiating arms with which it can seize and drown a man, it possesses certain attributes of the Kraken; but we have no authentic knowledge of its ever attaining to greater dimensions than I have stated, nor does it bask on the surface of the sea. It is not amongst the _Octopidae_ therefore that we must look for a solution of the mystery.

The basking condition is fulfilled by the _Sepia_; and its flattened back, supported and rendered hard and firm to the touch by the calcareous _sepiostaire_ beneath the skin, is broader in proportion than that of the octopus or the squid. Thus _Sepia_ might pass as a microscopic miniature of the great Scandinavian monster. But it lacks the character of size. We have no reason to believe that any true _Sepia_ exists, as the family is now understood, that has a body more than eighteen inches long. If it were otherwise it would be more likely to be known of this family than of its relatives, for its lightly constructed and well known "cuttle-bone" would float on the surface for many weeks after the death of its owner, and large specimens of it would be seen and recognised from passing ships.

As we can find no species of the _Octopidae_ or _Sepiidae_ which can furnish a pretext for the stories told of the Kraken, we must try to ascertain how far a similitude to it may be traced in the third family we have discussed, the _Teuthidae_.

The belief in the existence of gigantic cuttles is an ancient one. Aristotle mentions it, and Pliny tells of an enormous polypus which at Carteia, in Grenada--an old and important Roman colony near Gibraltar--used to come out of the sea at night, and carry off and devour salted tunnies from the curing depots on the shore; and adds that when it was at last killed, the head of it (they used to call the body the head, because in swimming it goes in advance) was found to weigh 700 lbs. AElian records a similar incident, and describes his monster as crushing in its arms the barrels of salt fish to get at the contents. These two must have been octopods if they were anything; the word "polypus" thus especially designates it, and moreover, the free-swimming cuttles and squids would be helpless if stranded on the shore. Some of the old writers seem to have aimed rather at making their histories sensational than at carefully investigating the credibility or the contrary of the highly coloured reports brought to them. These were, of course, gross exaggerations, but there was generally a substratum of truth in them. They were based on the rare occurrence of specimens, smaller certainly, but still enormous, of some known species, and in most cases the worst that can be said of their authors is that they were culpably careless and foolishly credulous.

Unhappily so lenient a judgment cannot be passed on some comparatively recent writers. Denys de Montfort, half a century later than Pontoppidan, not only professed to believe in the Kraken, but also in the existence of another gigantic animal distinct from it; a colossal _poulpe_, or octopus, compared with which Pliny's was a mere pigmy. In a drawing fitter to decorate the outside of a showman's caravan at a fair than seriously to illustrate a work on natural history,[10] he depicted this tremendous cuttle as throwing its arms over a three masted vessel, snapping off its masts, tearing down the yards, and on the point of dragging it to the bottom, if the crew had not succeeded in cutting off its immense limbs with cutlasses and hatchets. De Montfort had good opportunities of obtaining information, for he was at one time an assistant in the geological department of the Museum of Natural History, in Paris; and wrote a work on conchology,[11] besides that already referred to. But it appears to have been his deliberate purpose to cajole the public; for it is reported that he exclaimed to M. Defrance: "If my entangled ship is accepted, I will make my 'colossal poulpe' overthrow a whole fleet." Accordingly we find him gravely declaring[12] that one of the great victories of the British navy was converted into a disaster by the monsters which are the subject of his history. He boldly asserted that the six men-of-war captured from the French by Admiral Rodney in the West Indies on the 12th of April, 1782, together with four British ships detached from his fleet to convoy the prizes, were all suddenly engulphed in the waves on the night of the battle under such circumstances as showed that the catastrophe was caused by colossal cuttles, and not by a gale or any ordinary casualty.

[10] 'Histoire Naturelle generale et particuliere des Mollusques,' vol. ii., p. 256.

[11] 'Conchyliologie Systematique.'

[12] 'Hist. Nat. des Moll.,' vol. ii., pp. 358 to 368.

Unfortunately for De Montfort, the inexorable logic of facts not only annihilates his startling theory, but demonstrates the reckless falsity of his plausible statements. The captured vessels did not sink on the night of the action, but were all sent to Jamaica to refit, and arrived there safely. Five months afterwards, however, a convoy of nine line-of-battle ships (amongst which were Rodney's prizes), one frigate, and about a hundred merchantmen, were dispersed, whilst on their voyage to England, by a violent storm, during which some of them unfortunately foundered. The various accidents which preceded the loss of these vessels was related in evidence to the Admiralty by the survivors, and official documents prove that De Montfort's fleet-destroying _poulpe_ was an invention of his own, and had no part whatever in the disaster that he attributed to it.

I have been told, but cannot vouch for the truth of the report, that De Montfort's propensity to write that which was not true culminated in his committing forgery, and that he died in the galleys. But he records a statement of Captain Jean Magnus Dens, said to have been a respectable and veracious man, who, after having made several voyages to China as a master trader, retired from a seafaring life and lived at Dunkirk. He told De Montfort that in one of his voyages, whilst crossing from St. Helena to Cape Negro, he was becalmed, and took advantage of the enforced idleness of the crew to have the vessel scraped and painted. Whilst three of his men were standing on planks slung over the side, an enormous cuttle rose from the water, and threw one of its arms around two of the sailors, whom it tore away, with the scaffolding on which they stood. With another arm it seized the third man, who held on tightly to the rigging, and shouted for help. His shipmates ran to his assistance, and succeeded in rescuing him by cutting away the creature's arm with axes and knives, but he died delirious on the following night. The captain tried to save the other two sailors by killing the animal, and drove several harpoons into it; but they broke away, and the men were carried down by the monster.

The arm cut off was said to have been twenty-five feet long, and as thick as the mizen-yard, and to have had on it suckers as big as saucepan-lids. I believe the old sea-captain's narrative of the incident to be true; the dimensions given by De Montfort are wilfully and deliberately false. The belief in the power of the cuttle to sink a ship and devour her crew is as widely spread over the surface of the globe, as it is ancient in point of time. I have been told by a friend that he saw in a shop in China a picture of a cuttle embracing a junk, apparently of about 300 tons burthen, and helping itself to the sailors, as one picks gooseberries off a bush.

Traditions of a monstrous cuttle attacking and destroying ships are current also at the present day in the Polynesian Islands. Mr. Gill, the missionary previously quoted, tells us[13] that the natives of Aitutaki, in the Hervey group, have a legend of a famous explorer, named Rata, who built a double canoe, decked and rigged it, and then started off in quest of adventures. At the prow was stationed the dauntless Nganaoa, armed with a long spear and ready to slay all monsters. One day when speeding pleasantly over the ocean, the voice of the ever vigilant Nganaoa was heard: "O Rata! yonder is a terrible enemy starting up from ocean depths." It proved to be an octopus (query, squid?) of extraordinary dimensions. Its huge tentacles encircled the vessel in their embrace, threatening its instant destruction. At this critical moment Nganaoa seized his spear, and fearlessly drove it through the head of the creature. The tentacles slowly relaxed, and the dead monster floated off on the surface of the ocean.

[13] _Leisure Hour_, October, 1875, p. 636.

Passing from the early records of the appearance of cuttles of unusual size, and the current as well as the traditional belief in their existence by the inhabitants of many countries, let us take the testimony of travellers and naturalists who have a right to be regarded as competent observers. In so doing we must bear in mind that until Professor Owen propounded the very clear and convenient classification now universally adopted, the squids, as well as the eight-footed _Octopidae_, were all grouped under the title of _Sepia_.

Pernetty, describing a voyage made by him in the years 1763-4,[14] mentions gigantic cuttles met with in the Southern Seas.

[14] 'Voyage aux Iles Malouines.'

Shortly afterwards, during the first week in March 1769, Banks and Solander, the scientific fellow-voyagers with Lieutenant Cook (afterwards the celebrated Captain Cook), in H.M.S. _Endeavour_, found in the North Pacific, in latitude 38 deg. 44' S. and longitude 110 deg. 33' W., a large calamary which had just been killed by the birds, and was floating in a mangled condition on the water. Its arms were furnished, instead of suckers, with a double row of very sharp talons, which resembled those of a cat, and, like them, were retractable into a sheath of skin from which they might be thrust at pleasure. Of this cuttle they say, with evident pleasurable remembrance of a savoury meal, they made one of the best soups they ever tasted. Professor Owen tells us, in the paper already referred to, that when he was curator of the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons, and preparing, in 1829, his first catalogue thereof, he was struck with the number of oceanic invertebrates which Hunter had obtained. He learned from Mr. Clift that Hunter had supplied Mr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Banks with stoppered bottles containing alcohol, in which to preserve the new marine animals that he might meet with during the circumnavigatory voyage about to be undertaken by Cook. Thinking it probable that Banks might have stowed some parts of this great hook-armed squid in one of these bottles for his anatomical friend, he searched for, and found in a bottle marked "J. B.," portions of its arms, the beak with tongue, a heart ventricle, &c., and, amongst the dry preparations, the terminal part of the body, with an attached pair of rhomboidal fins. The remainder had furnished Cook and his companions Banks and Solander with a welcome change of diet in the commander's cabin of the _Endeavour_. As the inner surface of the arms of the squid, as well as the terminals of its tentacles, were studded with hooks, Professor Owen named it _Enoploteuthis Cookii_. He estimates the diameter of the tail fin at 15 inches, the length of its body 3 feet, of its head 10 inches, of the shorter arms 16 inches, and of the longer tentacles about the same as its body--thus giving a total length of about 6 ft. 9 in. Although individuals of other species, of larger dimensions, are known to have existed, this is the largest specimen of the hook-armed calamaries that has been scientifically examined. It would have been a formidable antagonist to a man under circumstances favourable to the exertion of its strength, and the use of its prehensile and lacerating talons.

Peron,[15] the well-known French zoologist, mentions having seen at sea, in 1801, not far from Van Diemen's Land, at a very little distance from his ship, _Le Geographe_, a "Sepia," of the size of a barrel, rolling with noise on the waves; its arms, between 6 and 7 feet long, and 6 or 7 inches in diameter at the base, extended on the surface, and writhing about like great snakes. He recognised in this, and no doubt correctly, one of the calamaries. The arms that he saw were evidently the animal's shorter ones, as under such circumstances, with neither enemy to combat nor prey to seize at the moment, the longer tentacles would remain concealed.

[15] 'Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres Australes.'

Quoy and Gaimard[16] report that in the Atlantic Ocean, near the Equator, they found the remains of an enormous calamary, half eaten by the sharks and birds, which could not have weighed less, when entire, than 200 lbs. A portion of this was secured, and is preserved in the Museum of Natural History, Paris.

[16] 'Voyage de l'Uranie: Zoologie,' vol. i., part 2, p. 411. 1824.

Captain Sander Rang[17] records having fallen in with, in mid-ocean, a species distinct from the others, of a dark red colour, having short arms, and a body the size of a hogshead.

[17] 'Manuel des Mollusques,' p. 86.