But fortunately, we are not left dependent on documentary evidence alone, nor with the option of accepting or rejecting, as caprice or prejudice may prompt us, the narratives of those who have told us they have seen what we have not. Cuttle-fishes of extraordinary size are preserved in several European museums. In the collection of the Faculty of Sciences at Montpellier is one six feet long, taken by fishermen at Cette, which Professor Steenstrup has identified as _Ommastrephes pteropus_. One of the same species, which was formerly in the possession of M. Eschricht, who received it from Marseilles, may be seen in the museum at Copenhagen. The body of another, analogous to these, is exhibited in the museum of Trieste. It was taken on the coast of Dalmatia. At the meeting of the British Association at Plymouth in 1841, Colonel Smith exhibited drawings of the beak and other parts of a very large calamary preserved at Haarlem; and M. P. Harting, in 1860, described in the Memoirs of the Royal Scientific Academy of Amsterdam portions of two extant in other collections in Holland, one of which he believes to be Steenstrup’s _Architeuthis dux_, a species which he regards as identical with _Ommastrephes todarus_ of D’Orbigny. Dr. J. E. Gray scientifically described, many years ago, in his “Spicilegia Zoologica,” a specimen of _Sepioteuthis major_ from the Cape of Good Hope, the body of which measured 27 inches, the head 6 inches, and the fins and body 7 inches each in breadth, and mentions one seen by Mrs. Graham, which had arms 28 feet long. In the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons are portions of an _Onychoteuthis_ or _Enoploteuthis_ (a squid, the suckers of which are furnished with prehensile hooks), found floating by Drs. Banks and Solander between Cape Horn and the Polynesian Islands, and described as having been 6 feet in length, including the tentacular arms.[47] The lower portion of the body, with the fins attached, in a dried and shrunken condition, is 18 inches long; the beak, 3½ inches. A part of one of its arms, with the hooked suckers, is also to be seen, which, however, being only the tip of one, gives no clue to its entire length. Still there remained a residuum of doubt in the minds of naturalists and the public concerning the existence of gigantic cuttle-fishes until, towards the close of the year 1873, two specimens were encountered on the coast of Newfoundland, and a portion of one and the whole of the other were brought ashore and preserved for examination by competent zoologists.