New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1873-12-28
The Devil Fishe
tCorrespondence of the Toronto Globe.

| sGorrespondence of the Toronto Globe.
A piece of rare good fortune has fallen in
my way, In connection with this extraor
| binary fish. In my last letter gave your
| readers an account of an interview which
| two of our fishermen bad with a monstrous
| specimen of the race, in Conception bay,
aud of the amputatiOn of two of its arms.
| Yesterday a fisherman from Logic bay
called on me and informed me that he had
| captured devil fish in net. On examine
tion found that his statement was correct,
aud that though the dimensions of this
specimen are small compared with the mon
ster of Conception bay, it is by no means
ito be sneezed ar" and is much larger
than Victor Hugo's celebrated devil fish
l am now the possessor of complete
specimen of this remarkable cutie fish:
and, Judging from the articles which
have recently appeared on the subject in
the Scientific Ameriea,. there is no other
specimen on this side of the Atlantic. 1t
took four stout fishermen to kill it. and they
were at length compelled to cut off its head
in order to accomplish their object. Had it
not been entangled in herring net, 80
that its huge arms were not available, as it
could get TO hold by it's suckers, the men
would have had no chance of capturing it.
have just been examining and measuring
my prize, and certainly it is one Of the most
extraordinary and horrible creatures ever
drawn from the great deep. The entire
length of the body was about nine feet
and about five feet in girth at the thickes:
part. The beak is small-not much bigger
than mans fist-and shaped exactly like
that of parrot. Round the head eight
arms extend, two of them being long
tentacles, twenty-five feet in length, rib
bon-like strips, not more than two inches
in circumference, and armed at the ex-
tremities with rows Of suckers having
tan thfI ..I
erful arms, each six feet in length, and at
the junction with the body almost as thick
as mans thigh. They taper. to fine
point, and are entirely covered with large
suckers, having denticulated edges, dimin.
ishng in size toward the extremities, where
they are not larger than a split pea.
Clasped in those six clammy arms, with
some 300 suckers acting at one moment,
and their sharp edges sinking into the
flesh, and seeming to drink the blood, how
powerless and helpless a. victim would at
once become! The suckers stand out promi-
nenrly from the surface of the arm, to which
each is attached by stout ligature. How
the creature can work these long tentacles,
which are but strip OF cartilage, darling
them with almost lightning speed, is incon-
ceivable., 1t seems to me that they must
be used as cables to anchor itself to
the rocks, or to the bottom of the
give it purchase" in grasping its prey.
Possibly, too, they may be used as organs of !
locomotion in moving forward along the |
bottom of the sea, or for the purpose of |
grasping more distant objects, and drawing |
hem within the reach OF the shorter and |
'touter arms. The long arms of this spec
men are very much thinner, and net within |
-n feet of being as long as the arm brought |
n by the fishermen OF Portugal Cove, which |
must have belonged to very much larger
cutie. Altogether, my specimen is a won
1ertul sight-a huge cartilagin0us tube sur
with q beak and eyes, but no face,
around which the immense arms radiate /
ike the spokes of wheel. The glutinous
mass has livid corpse like appearance. If
Sarnum had it in his show room, what a
ush there would be to see it! At present it
couples an ignoble position on the floor of
n out house. but am taking measures to
ave it preserved.