Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 April 1885 — A Devil Fish One Hundred Feet Long. [ARTICLE]

A Devil Fish One Hundred Feet Long.

Capt. Keene states that, when fishing on the Grand Bank, in latitude 44 degrees north, longitude 50 degrees west (approximately), he found floating at the surface near his vessel one of the large squid, the body of which, measured as accurately as it could be from a dory, was fifty feet long, while the tentacles, all of which were intact and uninjured, were longer than the body, makingrthe entire length more than IUO feet. The tentacles were larger around than the body of a stout man. He cut the squid up and boated aboard three dory-loads, probably about three tons’ weight, and he estimates that there were at least one or two more boatloads which he left to float away. I had previously heard of fishermen finding pieces of tentacles, etc., which might belong to animals nearly or quite as large as the one above mentioned, but I have never before met with any one who has had the fortune to see entire such a king of mollusks. The information which he furnishes seems to be of more than ordinary importance, since it enables us to form more accurate estimates of the maximum growth attained by thesa great “devil fish.”— Letter to Prof. Baird , Fish Commissioner.