THE OCEAN AS A FIELD—THE VARIOUS CROPS IT YIELDS—THE SPONGE—TRANSPLANTING SPONGES—CORAL FISHING—THE DISCOVERY OF THE NATURE OF CORAL—ITS RECEPTION BY NATURALISTS—OYSTER FISHERY—THE OYSTER A SOCIAL ANIMAL—THE YOUNG OYSTER—OYSTER CULTURE—DREDGING FOR OYSTERS—THE AMERICAN OYSTER FISHERY—PEARL OYSTERS—PEARL FISHERIES—THEIR VALUE—SHARK FISHING—CUTTLE FISHING.

Though the ocean may appear to be a barren waste of water to the farmer, it has by no means this aspect to the fisherman. To him it is the field in which he labors, and the crops he gathers from it are as diversified in character, and as important for satisfying the demands of the world, as those which the farmer raises. And further than this, the labors of the fisherman have helped to increase our knowledge of the composition and character of the sea, of the habits of the organized beings found in it, as the labors of the farmer have done the same thing for the soil, and the products which it bears.

In considering the various fisheries of the ocean, naturally that of the sponge, as one of the lowest forms of animal life, comes first in order. Science is hardly yet decided in its views concerning the organization and development of these obscure and complex creatures, and despite the investigations of modern naturalists, their position in the scale of animal life is still problematical, and their internal organization is still known only imperfectly. Dr. Bowerbank in his work on British Sponges, published in 1866, describes nearly 200 species, but this number by no means includes them all. They are of all sizes, and of all possible diversity of shape. At present the chief sponge fishing is carried on in the Grecian Archipelago and on the coast of Syria. The boat's crew consists of four or five men who, between June and October, seek the sponges under the cliffs and ledges of the rocks. Those obtained in shallow waters are considered inferior; the best are obtained at a depth ranging from twenty to thirty fathoms. The poorer sponges are taken from the shallow waters with harpoons, but are injured by this method of capture. The others are taken by hand. The diver descends to the bottom, and can stay there from a minute to a minute and a half, and carefully detaches the sponges from the rocks with a knife.

Sponge fishing is also carried on in other parts of the Mediterranean, but without any foresight, so that the sponges will, in time, be exhausted. To guard against this contingency, it has been proposed to transplant and acclimatize the sponges upon the coast of France and Algeria, where the composition of the water is the same as that upon the coast of Syria, and where the difference of temperature would prove no impediment to their flourishing. In fact, the farther north the sponges grow, the finer and compacter are their tissue. By use of a submarine boat, supplied with air by a force-pump, it was proposed to collect such specimens, as were best suited for the purpose, removing the rocks with them; and also to collect the young sponges, during the months of April and May, shortly after they have commenced their independent existence, and before they have anchored themselves to some permanent abode, and transport them to a favorable locality. The French Acclimatization Society, in 1862, gave a commission to M. Lamiral, who had passed years in the study of sponges, and who has published an excellent work upon their habits, to collect the germs, and transplant them to the coast of France. Though up to this time, the attempts which have been made to do this have not met with perfect success, yet the results already gained, show that with further experience, perseverance will attain its desired end.

Sponges are also fished for in the Red Sea. On the Bahama Banks, and in the Gulf of Mexico, sponges are taken by Mexicans, Spaniards, and Americans, in shallow water. A mast is sunk at the side of the boat, and the diver descends this; gathering the sponges found near the bottom of the pole.

Next in order of fishing in deep sea, comes coral fishing. The ancients believed that the coral was a plant, but it is now known that the coral is constructed by a family of polyps living together, and constituting a polypidom. It abounds in the waters of the Mediterranean where upon rocky beds like a submarine forest, the red coral, the most brilliant and celebrated of all coral, grows at various depths, rarely less than five fathoms, or more than one hundred. Each polypidom resembles a red leafless shrub, bearing delicate little star-shaped white flowers. The branches and trunk of this little tree, are the parts common to the family, the flowers are the individual polyps. The branches show a soft, reticulated crust, or bark, full of small holes, which are the cells of the polyps and they are permeated by a milky juice. Beneath the crust is the coral, hard as marble, and remarkable for its striped surface, its red color, and the fine polish it will take. The fishing is chiefly carried on by sailors from Genoa, Leghorn, and Naples, and is a very laborious occupation. The barks engaged in it are small, ranging from ten to fifteen tons. The coral is fished with an apparatus called an engine, consisting of cross bars of wood tied and bolted together at the centre. Below this is a large stone with nets or bags attached. Each engine has a number of these nets, and when let down into the sea, they spread out. The coral grows on the tops of the rocks, and the object is to scrape it off into these bags. By experience, the fishermen come to learn the favorable places for capturing the coral. When such a spot is reached, the engine is thrown overboard, and as soon as it reaches the bottom, the speed of the vessel is slackened, and the capstan, for hauling it up is manned. In this way the engine is dragged over the bottom, becomes entangled with the rocks, and the nets catch the coral. Sometimes rocks of large size are brought on board.

Up to the last century the opinion of antiquity that coral was a vegetable product was accepted by all naturalists, though no one attempted an explanation how it grew. This opinion was confirmed when the Count de Marsigli announced his discovery of the flowers of the coral plant, and this announcement was considered the final proof of the vegetable origin of coral. In 1723, however, Jean AndrÉ de Peyssonnel, a pupil of Marsigli's, and a student of medicine and natural history at Paris, was sent to Marseilles, his native place, by the Academy of Sciences, to study the coral in its living condition, and continued his studies on the northern coast of Africa, where he was sent by the French Government.

He soon discovered, by a series of careful and delicate experiments, that the coral was an animal product, and that the supposed flowers were the expanded little animals who build up the coral, and who form one of the lowest forms in the series of organized life on the globe. Peyssonnel says: "I put the flower of the coral in vases full of sea-water, and I saw that what had been taken for a flower of this pretended plant was, in truth, only an animal, like a sea nettle or polyp, I had the pleasure of seeing the feet of the creature move about, and having put the vase full of water, which contained the coral, in a gentle heat over the fire, all the small animals seemed to expand. The polyp extended his feet, and showed what M. de Marsigli and I had taken for the petals of a flower. The calyx of this pretended flower, in short, was the animal, which advanced and issued out of his cell."

This discovery was received by the naturalists of the time with contempt and ridicule; so much so that Peyssonnel, disgusted, retired into obscurity, leaving his manuscripts in the Museum of Natural History in Paris, where they still remain, unpublished. Before his death, however, in his retirement, he had the satisfaction of seeing his views accepted, and some of those who had most ridiculed them on their first presentation, become the most enthusiastic and effective advocates of them.

Besides the coral fished for as we have described, the coral polyp constructs islands, and carries on labors which very materially affect the condition of the ocean and the form of the land, concerning which we will have occasion to speak else where.

Another fishery which may be fitly mentioned here is the oyster fishery. There are several varieties of the oyster. Those usually eaten in France are the common oyster (Ostrea edulis), and the horse foot oyster (O. hippopus). The oysters of the Mediterranean are the rose-colored oyster (O. rosacea), and the milky oyster (O. lacteola), with the small and little known crested oyster (O. instata), and the folded oyster (O. plicata). On the Corsican coast the oysters are called foliate (Olamleosa). In France the Cancale and Ostend oysters are chiefly noted. When the first of these has been fed for some time in the parks or beds, and has assumed a greenish color, it is known as the Narenna oyster, from the name of the park in the Bay of Scudre.

Natural oyster beds occur in every sea where the coast affords the proper conditions with a shelving and not too rocky bottom. In France the beds of Rochelle, Rochefort, the isles of Re and Oleron, the bay of St. Brieuc, Cancale and Granville are the most famous. On the Danish coast there are forty or fifty beds on the west coast of Schleswig, the best lying between the small islands of Sylt, Amzon, Fohr, Pelworm and Nordstrand. The oyster beds of England extend from Gravesend, in the estuary of the Thames and midway along the Kentish coast, and in the estuary of the Coluc and other small streams on the Essex coast. The Frith of Forth is also famous for its oyster beds. The product of these beds has diminished in recent times; according to some authorities from too improvident and persistent dredging, but Mr. Buckland attributes the decrease in the yield to sudden changes in the temperature at the critical period when the spat, or young oysters, are just formed, rather than to over-dredging.

The United States is more abundantly furnished with oyster beds than any other country. They extend along almost the entire coast. Those of Virginia are estimated to comprise nearly 2,000,000 of acres. The sea-board of Georgia is famous for its immense supplies, while the whole 115 miles of Long Island is occupied with them.

The oyster is one of the lowest forms of the mollusk. Its mouth opens right into its stomach, which is surrounded by its liver, permeated by a yellow liquid, the bile. It may thus be said that they have their stomach and intestine in the liver, the mouth upon the stomach and the opening of the intestine in the back. They have a heart which circulates a colorless blood. They breathe at the bottom of sea, having an organ which separates from the water the small amount of oxygen it contains. Their respiratory organs are two pair of gills, or branchiae, curved and formed by a double series of very delicate canals placed close together, resembling the teeth of a fine comb. This apparatus, like the mouth, is hidden under the fold of the mantle. They have no brain, but a ganglion of nerves, a whitish substance situated near their mouths. From this originate the nerves, which branch off to the region of the liver and stomach; here they re-unite in a second ganglion which is placed behind the liver. The nerves of the mouth and its tentacles originate in the first ganglion, those of the respiratory organs in the second. It has no sense of sight or hearing, the sense of touch is all that it has, and this resides in the tentacles of the mouth. Its taste, if it has any, must be very feeble. Its powers are most limited; imprisoned forever in its shell, it has no power of locomotion, and being without any distinction of sex, its wants or desires must be very few.

Still the oyster appears to be a social animal, and loves to gather together in great numbers, so that despite their apparently low grade of intelligence, we cannot say that they have not sympathetic feelings. Uniting as they do both sexes in each individual, the oyster's organs of reproduction are visible only at the period they are in use. Their young are produced from eggs, which are produced between the folds of their mantle, and in the midst of their respiratory organs. The number of these eggs is prodigious. According to some authorities the number produced by a single oyster reaches 10,000,000. Naturalists, however, at present consider this estimate too high, and limit it at about 2,000,000 for each individual. The eggs are yellow, are hatched in the mantle, and when the embryo leaves its parent it can breathe. The spawning time is from June to September. The oyster differs from most shell-fish in that when the young leave the parent they can support themselves; ordinarily the shell-fish throw out their eggs committing them to chance for their protection. In the spawning season an oyster bed is the most interesting place; each oyster is throwing out a whole array of descendants, filling the water with a cloud of living dust, so that the sea is clouded with the spat as it is called.

Under the microscope the spat is seen to be provided with a shell, and with vibratory cils which enable it to swim. When the current carries it against any stationary body, it immediately adheres to it, the cils disappear and the young oyster, becoming fixed, commences to develop. It takes three years for them to attain their full size. While the spat is swimming about, before becoming fixed, it is said that if anything alarm them they seek refuge again within the maternal shell. Such prolific production would soon stock the whole sea, were it not for the fact that the young are feeble swimmers, and that millions of them are annually swept away and lost by the current, or fall a prey to the numerous animals which feed upon them.

The favorite place for the oyster is on the shore, in water not very deep and free from currents; here they are very prolific. The idea of breeding them is as old as the Romans, and to-day the planting of oyster beds, and fishing from them gives occupation to thousands. Some of the oyster beds of France which were nearly exhausted twenty years ago have been made again very productive by attention and care. The plan of suspending faggots upon which the spawn should adhere, has been found very successful. From the Bay of St. Brieuco two faggots, taken up at random, were found to contain about 20,000 young oysters, ranging in size from one to three inches in diameter. Their exhibition excited astonishment; they looked like leafy branches, each leaf being a living oyster.

In the island of Re oyster farming is in full operation. It is calculated that the beds contain 600 oysters to the square yard, the majority of marketable condition, making a total of 378,000,000 in these beds alone. In the United States, the productiveness of the beds is almost inestimable, and yet, despite the immense number of oysters yearly brought to market, the demand continually outstrips the supply. The modern methods of canning have opened a so much wider market, the whole inland country being thus opened to the supply, it is almost impossible to overstock the market.

The peculiar green color of the oysters in France, which have been planted in beds, or claries, and which is thought to make their flavor better, arises from some cause, concerning which naturalists differ. It seems, however, to be some kind of disease, arising from the condition of the water in these beds.

Oyster fishing is pursued in different ways, in different countries. Around Minorca the diver descends with a hammer in his hand to knock the oysters from the rocks, and brings up generally a dozen or more with each descent. On the English and French coasts the dredge is used. This method is very destructive, since it tears the large and small together from their native spot, and buries many also in the mud. Oysters, as we know them, are of convenient size for making a mouthful; the largest may have to be separated into parts before a delicate person can swallow them, but it is only the largest which have to be submitted to this process, and your real oyster lover has too tender a regard for his favorite mollusk to so maltreat it. On the coast of Coromandel, however, the oysters grow to be as big as soup plates, and larger, the shells of some of them measuring almost two feet across. These shells are frequently used in the Catholic churches of Europe to contain the holy water, placed near the door for the use of the faithful, and are quite as large as big hand basins. A half-dozen such oysters on the half-shell, would make a feast even for the most voracious oyster eater.

The oyster beds on the coast of the United States are generally in so shallow water that they can be readily reached with rakes furnished with handles fifteen to twenty feet long. A pair of these are mounted like a gigantic pair of scissors, the pivot being nearer the rakes than the other end of the poles. Taking an end of one of these poles in each hand, the fisherman sinks it to the bottom, opens it, and moves the handles until a supply of oysters is scraped up between the rakes. Then pulling up the instrument, he empties the oysters into the bottom of his boat, and uses his rakes again. Millions of dollar's worth of oysters is thus fished every year, and fleets of small sailing ships are constantly engaged in the traffic along the coast.

To an European, the American oyster at first appears enormous, compared with those he is accustomed to. Their flavor also is different; they have not a peculiar coppery taste to which he is accustomed, and which most Americans in Europe dislike at first. A little practice, however, soon enables the European to recognize the merit of our oysters, and they become very fond of them. Both Thackaray and Dickens, during their visits to this country, were loud in their praises of the excellence of the oysters.

The pearl oyster (Meleagrina margaritifera), is one of the most interesting and valuable of the varieties of the oyster. The pearls are formed of the same substance which lines the shells of so many shell-fish, and which as nacre, or mother of pearl, is so well known for its iridescent beauty. It is deposited by the animal in very thin layers, and it is the interference of the rays of light in their reflection from this varying surface which produces the phenomena of iridescence. It is easy for any one to satisfy himself of this. Press a piece of wax upon a piece of mother of pearl, or any other iridescent body, and the surface of the wax when removed will itself appear iridescent. It has reproduced the fine lines of the iridescent body. Soap bubbles, being formed of films of the soapy water, attain their brilliant coloring from the same cause. Brass buttons were once fashionable which showed the same colors. They were made by having the polished surface ruled with microscopically fine lines. It was, however, so costly to make them, they cost a guinea each, that they were soon abandoned.

Pearls are the secretion of nacreous material, spread, it is supposed, over some foreign substance which has been introduced into the shell, under the mantle of the mollusk. When the pearls are deposited on the shells, they generally adhere to it, when they originate in the body of the animal they are free. As a rule some foreign body is found in their centre which served as the nucleus for the deposit of the secretion. It may be a sterile egg of the animal itself, or of a fish, or a grain of sand, which was washed in.

The Chinese and other nations of the East, take advantage of this fact in natural history, for purposes of profit. They take up the living mollusk, and opening the shell introduce into it glass beads, or small metallic casts, representing some one of their gods, or other objects, and then returning the mollusk to the water, in time the animal has coated them with mother of pearl. The illustration shows a shell into which small beads have been introduced, and converted into pearls, together with a dozen small figures of Buddha, the Hindoo divinity, seated, which have been covered over with nacre also.

The pearls are at first very small, but they increase in size with the yearly deposit of a layer on the original centre. Sometimes they are diaphanous, semi-transparent, lustrous and more or less irridescent, at other times, however, they prove to be dull, obscure, and smoky even. The pearl fisheries are carried on in various places. They are found in the Persian Gulf, on the coast of Arabia, in Japan, on the shores of California, and in the islands of the South Sea. The most important ones are, however, those of the Bay of Bengal, the coast of Ceylon, and elsewhere in the Indian Ocean. Previous to 1795 most of the Indian fisheries were in the hands of the Dutch, but in 1802, after the treaty of Amiens, they passed into the possession of the English. Sometimes the Ceylon fisheries are undertaken by the Government, while at others they are sold to a contractor. In either case, before they begin, the coast is inspected by a Government official, in order to see that the banks are not exhausted by too frequent fishing.

The chief supply of mother of pearl is obtained from the fishery in the Gulf of Manaar, a large bay on the northeast of the island of Ceylon. It commences in February or March, and lasts thirty days. Some two hundred and fifty boats are engaged in it, coming for the purpose from all parts of the coast. At ten at night a gun gives the signal for them to set sail, and reaching the ground they commence as soon as the dawn affords sufficient light. Each boat carries ten rowers and ten divers, five of whom rest while the others are engaged. A negro to attend to the odd jobs and chores accompanies each boat.

The divers descend from forty to fifty feet, seventy is the utmost they can stand. Thirty seconds is the time they usually remain under water, and the best cannot stay longer than a minute and a half. When the fishing ground is reached a staging, built of the oars, is rigged to project from the boat over the water, and to the edge of this the diving-stones are hung, weighing from fifty to sixty pounds. The diver stands in a stirrup upon this, or if this is wanting upon the stone itself, holding the cord attached to it between his toes, with his left foot he holds the net for the reception of the pearl-oysters. Then, pressing his nostrils firmly with his left hand, and with his right grasping the signal cord, he is let rapidly down to the bottom. As soon as he arrives there, he removes his foot from the stone which is immediately drawn up again. Then throwing himself flat upon the ground, he hastily gathers into his net all the oysters within his reach. When he feels he must return to the surface he pulls the signal cord with a jerk, and is pulled up as quickly as possible. A good diver seeks to avoid straining himself, and so stays under water only the shortest time, seldom more than half a minute, but he will repeat the operation sometimes as much as fifteen or twenty times. The work is very distressing, the increased pressure of the water affects the entire system, and frequently on rising to the surface the water which runs from their ears, nose and mouth is tinged with blood. The effect is also to induce pulmonary diseases, and the divers rarely attain old age. Sharks are also common in these waters, and the divers are not unfrequently destroyed by these rapacious monsters, who are the more attracted by the fact that the divers, for their own convenience, are naked.

The work continues until noon, when a second gun gives notice for its cessation. The boats then return with the cargo they have gained, and are received by the proprietors on the shore, who personally superintend their discharge, which must be finished before dark, since anything left over night would most certainly be stolen.

The fisheries of Ceylon were formerly very valuable, but at present the banks show signs of exhaustion, from over-fishing most probably. In 1798 they are said to have produced nearly a million dollars' worth of pearls, but now they seldom yield more than a hundred thousand dollars' worth. The inhabitants along the coast of the Bay of Bengal, the Chinese seas, and the islands of Japan, are also engaged in the pearl fishing. Together the yield is estimated at about four millions of dollars.

Further west, on the Persian coast, the Arabian gulf and the Muscat shore, as well as in the Red sea, pearls are found.

In these latter countries the pearl fishing commences in July, for during this and the next month the sea is usually calm. When the boats have arrived over the bed, they anchor, the water being eight or nine fathoms deep. The divers carry their bag tied around their waists, and plug their nostrils with cotton, then closing their mouths, are sunk by a stone rapidly to the bottom. The pearls obtained from the fisheries on the Arabian coast reach a value of over a million and a half of dollars.

Pearl fishing is also carried on, on the coast of South America. Before the Spanish conquest of Mexico the fisheries were situated between Acapulco and the Gulf of Tehuantepec, but since that time other beds have been found near the islands of Cubagua, Margarita and Panama. The yield at first was so promising that flourishing cities grew up in the vicinity of these places, and during the reign of Charles V., pearls to the value of nearly a million of dollars were sent to Spain, but the present yield averages only about three hundred thousand dollars.

When the oysters are taken from the boats, they are piled up on grass mats on the shore, and left in the sun. The mollusks soon die, and begin to decompose. In about ten days they are sufficiently putrified to become soft. Then they are thrown into tanks of sea water, opened and washed. The pearls which adhere to the shells are taken off with pinchers; those that are in the body of the animal are secured by passing its substance through a sieve, after boiling the flesh to make it soft. The shells furnish the nacre, which is split off from the rough outside with a sharp instrument, or the outside is dissolved from the mother of pearl by an acid. Three kinds of mother of pearl are known in commerce, as silver face, bastard white and bastard black; the first is the most valuable. The pearls are the most important part of the product. Those which adhere to the shell are always more or less irregular in their shape, and are sold by weight. They are called baroques. Those found in the body of the animal are called virgin pearls, or paragons, and are round, oval or pyramid shaped. These are sold generally singly; the price varying according to size, lustre, clearness, etc. Months after the shells have been examined, poor natives are seen diligently turning over the putrifying mass which has been cast aside, eagerly searching for some pearl that has been overlooked; as in our cities the ashes, barrels and gutters are searched by the same wretched class for the refuse of luxury.

The pearls are polished by shaking them together in a bag with nacre powder. By this process they are smoothed and polished. Then they are assorted according to sizes by being passed through a series of copper sieves, placed over each other, and pierced with an increasing number of holes, growing smaller. Thus, sieve number twenty has twenty holes in it; fifty, fifty holes, and the last of the series of twelve, one thousand holes. The pearls retained between twenty and eighty are called mill, and are considered to be of the first order. Those between one hundred and eight hundred are vivadoe, and class second. Those which pass through all but the thousand are tool, or seed pearls, and are third. The seed pearls are sold by measure or weight. The larger ones are drilled, strung on a white or blue silk thread, and exposed for sale.

In the American fisheries the oysters are opened each separately with a knife, and the animal is pressed between the thumb and finger in the search for pearls. This process takes longer, and is not considered as certain to find them all as that followed in the East, but the nacre and the pearls thus taken from the live animal are fresher and more brilliant than from those oysters which have died and decayed. Other mollusks also furnish pearls, but not in a regular enough supply to justify their fishing. In fact pearls are often found in our common oysters.

Fishing for sharks is one of the most exciting kinds of sport, and has the further merit that its success is the destruction of the most destructive inhabitant of the sea; a predatory robber, who spares none that come in his way. The prey in which the shark most delights is, however, man himself. He even manifests, according to some authorities, a preference for Europeans over the Asiatic or the Negro races. A shark who has once enjoyed the luxury of human flesh is said to haunt the neighborhood where he obtained it. He follows a ship from some instinctive feeling, and has been known to leap into a fisherman's boat, or throw himself against a ship in an effort to reach a sailor who had shown himself over the bulwarks. The slave ships during their voyages were constantly followed by sharks, who battled eagerly for the corpses of the unhappy dead which were thrown overboard. In one case it is recorded that a corpse was hung from the yard arm, dangling twenty feet above the water, and was devoured, limb by limb, by a shark, who leaped that distance from the water to obtain his horrid repast.

On the African coast the negroes boldly attack the shark in his own element. As his mouth is placed under his head, he has to turn round before he can seize anything, and taking advantage of this, the negro seizes the opportunity to rip him up with a sharp knife.

Shark fishing is regularly followed off the coast of Nantucket, for their skins and the oil they furnish. The skins are used for various purposes in the arts. In Norway and Iceland portions of the flesh are dried, and serve as provision for the food of winter.

The persistancy with which a shark will follow a vessel at sea leads to their frequently being caught. The hook is of iron, as thick as a man's finger, and six or eight inches long, the point made very sharp. It is fastened with a chain five or six feet long, to prevent the shark's teeth from severing it. Baited with a good sized piece of pork, and fastened to a long line, it is thrown over. Sometimes in his eagerness to catch it the shark will jump from the water, but oftener, having probably learned from experience something about the tricks of men, he is more cautious in taking it. Often he will examine it, swim round it, and manage to get it, without taking the hook also, as often as it is offered to him rebaited. If he, however, swallows the hook with the bait, it still requires some dexterity to catch him; the line must not be jerked prematurely; he must be given time enough to swallow it well, then a good jerk fixes the point of the hook, and the sport commences for everybody but the shark. In hauling him in it is not safe to trust only to the hook; his struggles are so violent and his strength is so great that he may break away. Being hauled therefore to the surface, the next thing is to get the noose of another rope round his body near the tail, or round one of his pectoral fins. This done he may be safely hauled on board, but even then he cannot be approached without danger, since a blow from his tail may prove fatal. In catching sharks off the coast of Nantucket, in smacks, the fishermen haul them to the surface at the side of the boat, and then kill them with blows on the head before taking them on board.

Among the monsters of the deep, none is more terrific in appearance than the cuttle fish. Terrible stories have been told of the magnitude of these sea monsters. Under the name of the Kraken marvelous tales were told of its destruction of ships, one of them, it being said, embracing a three-masted ship in its gigantic arms. Our illustration, however, shows a well authenticated case of the capture of an enormous cuttle fish. An account of the capture was made to the French Academy of Sciences by Lieutenant Bayer, the commander of the French corvette Alecton, who made the capture, and M. Sabin Berthelot, the French Consul at the Canary Islands. While on her course between Teneriffe and Madeira, the Alecton fell in with a large cuttle fish measuring about fifty feet in length, without counting its eight arms, covered with suckers. Its head, its largest part, measured about twenty feet in circumference: its tail consisted of two fleshy lobes or fins. Its weight was estimated at 4,000 pounds. Its color was brickish red, and its flesh was soft and glutinous. The shots which were fired at it passed through it without apparently producing any injury. After it was thus wounded, however, the sea was observed to be covered with foam and blood, and a strong odor of musk was smelt. Harpoons were also cast into it, but they took no hold. Finally, however, one of the harpoons stuck fast, and the sailors succeeded in getting a running noose round the lower part of its body, near the tail. On attempting to haul it on board, the rope cut it in two, the head part disappearing and the tail portion being brought on deck.

It is supposed that the animal was either sick, or exhausted from some cause, possibly a recent struggle with some other marine monster, and that on this account it had left its usual haunts on the rocks at the bottom of the sea, since otherwise it would have been more active than it was, or would have discharged the inky cloud, which the cuttle fish has always at its disposal for avoiding its enemies.