[25] The special correspondent at Gibraltar of the _Daily Telegraph_ (Mr. George Augustus Sala) wrote as follows on this subject:—For the information of Mr. Henry Lee, I may observe that nothing whatever is known at Gib. about the terrible octopus who is said to have sucked the boatswain of a man-of-war into the lowermost depths of Davy Jones’s locker; but there are legends commonly recited in the smoking-room of the King’s Arms as to an octopus that held on to a sharp rock with one set of suckers, and capsized a felucca from Algeciras with the other. The Spaniards eat this horrible creature very willingly. When they catch him, they first pound him violently between two stones, as some cooks are in the habit of thwacking beefsteaks of which the tenderness is doubtful, and then they hang him up in the sun until his abominable body and limbs are dried. Ultimately they fry him in oil, and declare that he is very nice. I have an idea that I must have eaten fried octopus for supper at Bobadilla, and that it was the delicacy which gave me such a thorough disgust of the place. The octopus, nevertheless, under the name of _pulpo_, is popular enough throughout Southern Spain, and is equally common, and equally devoured, on the coast of Algeria and Morocco.—_Daily Telegraph_, March 15, 1875. [26] A gentleman engaged in the cod-fishery, and residing at Fogo, Newfoundland, has told me that he was startled one evening by an unusual sound at the back of his house, which is at the head of the harbour, and the next morning found three barrels of squids dead on the shore. The same gentleman received information, on the 29th of June, 1873, of a gigantic squid having been picked up in Trinity Bay, and seen by Mr. Haddon, school inspector. It measured sixteen feet in length. The squid used so abundantly as bait in the Newfoundland cod-fishery is _Ommastrephes sagittatus_. [27] In Jonathan Couch’s manuscript diary, which I have had the gratification of perusing, the following entry appears, dated 1819:—“John Hotton (a fisherman of Polperro), informs me that some time since he was at sea for the purpose of catching cuttles, when the night was so dark, that, though cuttles were in plenty and followed the bait to the surface, he could not see to hook them. He then desired his son to take a lanthorn, and hold it close to the water so that he might see; when, to his surprise, a great many cuttles gathered round the light, and without bait or hook he caught eighteen by hooking them with the rod (gaff). Since then he has more than once put the same plan in practice with success.” [28] “Intellectual Observer,” vol. ii., p. 164. [29] One of the recipes for “areca-nut tooth-powder” is:—“Ground areca-nuts, three parts; cuttle-bone, one part; flavour with cloves or cassia.” [30] “Naturalis Historiæ,” lib. ix., cap. 30. A.D. 77. [31] Lib. iii., cap. 6. De anim. A.D. 220 to 250.