s, there must be some ground for
the imagination of the story-tellers. One cannot deny that poulps and
cuttlefish exist of a large species, inferior, however, to the
cetaceans. Aristotle has stated the dimensions of a cuttlefish as five
cubits, or nine feet two inches. Our fishermen frequently see some
that are more than four feet long. Some skeletons of poulps are
preserved in the museums of Trieste and Montpelier, that measure two
yards in length. Besides, according to the calculations of some
naturalists, one of these animals only six feet long would have
tentacles twenty-seven feet long. That would suffice to make a
formidable monster."

"Do they fish for them in these days?" asked Ned.

"If they do not fish for them, sailors see them at least. One of my
friends, Captain Paul Bos of Havre, has often affirmed that he met one
of these monsters of colossal dimensions in the Indian seas. But the
most astonishing fact, and which does not permit of the denial of the
existence of these gigantic animals, happened some years ago, in 1861."

"What is the fact?" asked Ned Land.

"This is it. In 1861, to the north-east of Teneriffe, very nearly in
the same latitude we are in now, the crew of the despatch-boat Alector
perceived a monstrous cuttlefish swimming in the waters. Captain
Bouguer went near to the animal, and attacked it with harpoon and guns,
without much success, for balls and harpoons glided over the soft
flesh. After several fruitless attempts the crew tried to pass a
slip-knot round the body of the mollusc. The noose slipped as far as
the tail fins and there stopped. They tried then to haul it on board,
but its weight was so considerable that the tightness of the cord
separated the tail from the body, and, deprived of this ornament, he
disappeared under the water."

"Indeed! is that a fact?"

"An indisputable fact, my good Ned. They proposed to name this poulp
`Bouguer's cuttlefish.'"

"What length was it?" asked the Canadian.

"Did it not measure about six yards?" said Conseil, who, posted at the
window, was examining again the irregular windings of the cliff.

"Precisely," I replied.

"Its head," rejoined Conseil, "was it not crowned with eight tentacles,
that beat the water like a nest of serpents?"

"Precisely."

"Had not its eyes, placed at the back of its head, considerable
development?"

"Yes, Conseil."

"And was not its mouth like a parrot's beak?"

"Exactly, Conseil."

"