Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1874-02-13

that seemed sick. He said he had often
seen floating pieces of their arms
as thick through as -four
barrel This latter statement is corrob-
GRATED by Mr.. T. II. Peale, Captain Francis
Post and Captain e. e. Smith. Another
witness, whose name is not given, is quot
ed as having seen piece forty feet long.
| The suckers on these large arms are said,
| by two witnesses, to be two feet across.
| A large sperm-whale has an under jaw
some eighteen feet long, thickly set with
strong teeth. He dives down, il seems,
and bites off the arms Of these huge devil
| fish, and devours them. A writer in the
| Naturalist of February, 1873, says: "It
is prevalent opinion among seamen that
the largest being that swims is q colossal
squid or cuttle.dsh." So here we come at
last to that old, tough story of Bishop
Pontoppidan that has long been looked
upon as the greatest "tish-story" extant.
Briefly given, it is this:
| The Norwegian fishermen sometimes
| ind unexpected shadows when O short
distance out at sea, the depth suddenly
| diminishing from one hundred fathoms
| to twenty or thirty. Then they know
that the kraken is rising, and they inn
mediately retreat His back first appears,
| looking like q number of small
islands. His arms rise above the
surface like the masts of vessel, and
are said to have power to grasp
the largest man-of-war and pull it to
the bottom. Pontoppidan's time was from
| 1893 to 1865, and Norwegian men-of-war,
in those days, were not as large as ours.
If we allow the longest piece said to be
bitten off by the sperm-whale (forty feet)
| to be two-thirds of the arm, this would
| give arms sixty feet long; and such arms,
| atIpb a M i0ht wall ha form id
able to a small vessel.
| In recent number of Nature June 5,
1879, the following extract gives very
curious proof of the possibility of such an
attack "a recent copy of the Japan
Gazette states that a huge cephalopod is
now shown in house near the temple at
Asaka, Yeddo. 1t seems that fishing
boat was seized by its tentacles, while off
the village of Kononoto, and that the
boatmen killed the creature by repeated
blows. Its body was sixteen feet long"
Since the above was written, curious
confirmation of these facts and possibili-
ties has occurred quite near to us-in fact,
almost upon our own coast.
The Rev. NJ. Harvey, of Newfoundland,
| in recent communication, says:
"a few days ago October 90, 1879. two
of our fishermen were out, in small boat,
in Conception Bay, near Portugal Cove,
when they saw dark, shapeless mass
| floating on the water.
"On approaching, the men concluded it
was huge bale of goods-perhaps part
of the cargo of some wrecked vessel
and that they had found valuable
| prize. One of them struck the OBJ
ject with his boathook, when sud-
oenly the dark heap became animated,
opened out like huge umbrella without
a handle, and the horror stricken fisher
men beheld q pair of green eyes, full of
intelligence, but also OF ferocity, glaring
at them, while its huge, parrotlike beak
opened with savage and malignant pur-
pose. The men were petritied with ter
ror, and, for moment, so fascinated
with the horrible sight that they were
powerless.
"The eyes of the monster were pecul-
iarly large and prominent, bright, and
| apparently cleaning with rage. Before
the fishermen could make any attempt to
escape, the creature, now but few feet
| from the boat, appeared to open out, and
suddenly there shot out from around its
face several long arms of corpse-like
| fleshiness. Had these 1.-the, Shiny arms,
| with their death-like adhesive powers,
once fastened themselves on the boat or
the men, nothing could have saved them
| from destruction; for, when the suckers
with which they are furnished have taken
| hold, nothing can tear them away. They
would have been brought in moment
within reach of the powerful beak which
was ready to dart upon them.
"Only one of the longer arms reached
the boat, and, owing to its length, went
completely over and beyond it. Quick
as lightning, one of the men seized
hatchet and, at one blow, Sc Csered the
| corpse-like arm which was flung over the
boat to drag it to destruction.
"The green-eyed monster uttered no
cry of pain, but moved off; and
the fishermen, who had thus es-
capped a horrible death, found them
selves in possession of the amputated
arm, which has been forwarded from St.
Johns. l have just returned from care
full examination of it. 1t measures nine
teen feet in length, and, as the fishermen
say the devil.fish must have at least ten
feet of this arm remaining, the entire
length must have been twenty-nine feet.
1t is tough and fibrous, livid in color, and
pointed at the extremity, where it is COW
cred with rows of suckers, which are car
| tilaginous, horny, and about the size of
| quarter of dollar. These suckers act
on the principle of a cupping-glass. Each
of them consists of a firm, fieshy, cartil-
| aginous ring, across which disk of mus
cular membrane is stretched, with a cir
! cular aperture IN the center. A cone
shaped mass of flesh fills this aperture,
| like piston, capable of being drawn
| backward. The membranous disk eau
also be drawn in. The moment one of
| these disks touches the prey, the devil
| fish retracts the f1eshy piston, which
creates vacuum, and makes the edge of
the disk press against the surface, so that
| it is impossible 10 tear them away with
out destroying The arm"
Mr.. Alexander Murray, the geologist of
| Newfoundland, in letter to Professor
Jules Marcou, dated November 10, 1878,
and read before the Boston Society
of Natural History, November 10, 1878,
corroborates substantially this account,
adding that the name of the fisherman
who cut off the monsters arm was The
ophilus Picot, and that the animal was
seen off the eastern end of Great Belle
Island, in Conception Bay. He says "a
part of this tentacle | have now in my
possession, immersed in spirits. send
you with this letter a couple of photo
graphs of the said tentacle, and a few of
the small, dentculated sucking.cups.
Picot says: The body of the animal was
about sixty feet long, its general diameter
not less than five feet and the breadth of
its tail at least ten feet He stated that
when the creature found itself mutilated
it made off backward, or tail first, after
the manner of squids, darkening the
water over a large space with inky ennis
sions. The enormous proportions given
above might appear to be exaggerations
were they not to great extent borne out
by the fragment of the animal which was
secured, and of which the photograph
will give you fair idea The beak,. or
hill, Picot says, was about as large as a
six-gallon keg. -AppLetOns' Journal.
The Lunatics' Ball.
AT the recent annual ball at the Iunatic