Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 July 1881 — A SEA MONSTER [ARTICLE]

A SEA MONSTER

Savage Creatures That Bise From the Bottom'of the Sea Onlylwhen . They are Mutilated Scientific Information About Them. ) New YorK Baa. “Weli, Uli b®'blowed,” said a redfaoed, jolly-looking peisonage, who was gazing at a diminutive squid advertised by a Rockaway showman as a “Monster of the Ocean.” . “You have seen.larger, then?” said a Sufi reporter, who had also been attracted by the announcement. t “Well, I should say so,” replied the -red-faced man. “Let’s see; this one here is about eight inches long. Well, I’ve caught squids whose eyes were just eight eight inches across. That’ll give you an idea.’* •: > “They must have been ten feet long, then?” . “Yes, if you add forty feet to it 1 suppose, you think that a pretty tough yarn, but it is a fact You see, lam a Grand Banks fisherman myself, off on a sort of vacation. I’ve heard about the games they play on a green hand here; but I wouldn’t want it to get out in Gloucester how I paid a quarter to look at a cod bait. We use those things for bait—catch them by thousands in nets and with jiggers and salt them down. I’ve carried fifty thousand out on one trip, and then to come away down here and pay a quarter to look at one—it’s astonishing how fresh a man can be who has always been around salt water. I’ve tackled a squid three feet long by actual measurement, and have seen chunks of others that I

guessed were from sixty to seventy feet long. You can’t get any idea of a big one from that little thing. I’ve been round the world, seen sharks, whales, and big snakes, but a big : equid when he’s cornered is about the worst looking creature you want to see. Generally their body is about ten feet long, looks like a grayish-white bag, with a tail like a big arrow head. The head is' small, but the are about as a large saucer or plate, and black and staring. When you catch a glimpse of them eyeing you out vom among tneir arms, I tell you it makes a man wish he hadn’t come. The arms, ten of them, branch from the head, eight short ones about fifteen leet, and two long ones from thirty to forty depending, of course, upon; the size of the squid. Eight of them are lined witkjpckers) each one ranging in size from a ten cent piece up to a half dollar. They are like so many air pumps. In, each one is a ring of bone witn edges like a saw. These are pressed into you, and the air is sucked our., which, of course, forces the teeth or the saw in, and you cau imagine the effect of hundreds of these flying around and striking ou all sides. The long arms only have their suckers confined to the ends, which are flattened out. Between all these arms is the mouth, which has two beaks just like a parrot’s, only larger, and the upper one sets into the under so they can nip a piece out of an oar blade as easy as to say the word. “Do they swim?. Yes, and backward, too, dragging the arms alter after them, aud going like lightning. Sometimes they jump right out of the water, and come down as slick as a flying fish. The first one I ever tackled was just above Trinity Bay, Newfoundland. We saw something in near shore, and a couple of us jumped into a dory and pqlled over to it. When we got near a big wave tossed us right on top of it, and the first thing that I knew I got a shot of water and ink (you Know they spurt ink from an ink bag) fair in the face, and by the time I wiped it off the squid was half aboard us. It flung five of its arms over, and one struck my mate on his bare and nearly hauled him over. I grabbed the ax, aud managed to cut two of the arms, when another got around my leg, and hauled me ofl my feet; down I went into the boat, and I believe that’s the only thing that saved us, as my hand landed on a big boat hook. 1 lay on my back, the boat half full c f water, and jammed that hook right through the ugly creature’s eyes, aud, as my mate bad put an oar through it, it slipped into the water. All this time, mind you, it was fuming •and spurting water and ink; but it was only about a half a fathom of water, and I stuck the. boat hook in it again. After we had bailed out the boat we rflade the equid fast by the painter, towed it aboard, and cut it up lor bait, after we had measured it. From the tip of the long arms to the end of the tail the line gave fifey-one and a half feet. We packed it in a tub that was made to hold exactly 900 pounds of cod, and it filled it. I wouldn’t tackle one again like it for the proceeds of a whole season. “Why, everywhere a sucker had struck my mate’s arm it looked like as though a red-hot iron had been pressed on aud sunk iu, aqd where they had beeu torn afcay the flesh had ’ gone, too. He was laid up a month. I had a heavy pair of boots on, and the leather showed the marks, as if they bad been cut with a penknife. “Yes,” (in answer to a question), “most all the Gloucester men can tell big stories about squids. Captain Collins, now one of the United States fish commission, used to run the schooner Howard, and they caught five in one day, averaging from thirty-five to forty-five feet on an- estimate, and weighing about a thousand pounds apiece. Some difference between them and this monster that we are money out on.’,’ .

This account was not exaggerated, as any may prove by paying a visit to the zoological museum .of Yale college, where Professor Vernll has the finest collection, of these creatures in this or any other country. A few years ago they were nbt beTlrveJ in'. «nd the stiange tales ofHugo were the only hints of their.cpcistence; but one was washed ashore on the Newfoundland coast, and fortunately ' fell into the hands of the Smithsonian Institute, and thus their existence became assured and credited*+>y many who some years-back classed them with the sea-serpent. At certain seasons they are more frequent than others, as they are only round or seen mutilated, living at other times in the deep Sou, it is supposed that they become injured ih the breeding seation; or perhaps at certain times parasitic animals are more frequent. 187$ was a season extremely noted in this respect, and numbers were seen floating on the surface, food for birds, or partly dead and mutilated. Others Were? fount! "along the coast, washed among the breakers, where they swung, hanging by their two long tentacles, which, were fastened to the rooks,, answering the purpose of cables to the living ship on.a sea shore. The greater number were observed between north latitude 44° and 44° 30 / . and between west longitude 49° 30' and 49° 50'. From this tract over thirty gigantic squids were taken by the Gloucester fishermon" alone, and cut up sot codfish bait. Along shore on the Newfoundland coast, the neople either sell them to the cod fisherman or cut them up for t dog meat. The schooner Sarah P. Ayer, Captain Oakley, t>f Gloucester, waap S ,HouUity tortunate. The E. R. Nickerson, Captain McDonald, harpooned ope and secured it, alter a struggle, the arms of which, were thirtyrfive feet long; and Captain Mallory, of the schooner Tragabigzanda, captured a number with bodies over twelve feet long without the .arms. . • . r. A famous place for them seems to be the Flemish Cap. a bank to the northeast of the Grand banks. Portions of these monsters have been found in .whales, that indicated animals nearly one hundred feet long and twenty-five hundred poundsdn weight Theeeani- ! mala are, not near to the geologists. Their fossil beaks* and ink bags are frequently found in the strata of recent

formation, the ink being so well pre* served thafaltwM formerly used as the •cpia of commerce, and a writer has penned the history of living squids with the ink of one that perished tens of thousands of years in the past Earlier forms of the squid appeared in shells*, and these fossil coverings are frequently found almost as large as a cart wheel, while some of the straightshelled varieties reached a length of fifteen feet, and according to some authorities, thirty feet Imagine a shell thirty feet in length propelled like a battering ram through the water, waving Its snake-like arms; a fitting forefather of the giant squid of to-day, the architenthls of the scientific world.