A squid is a baby octopus, or "devil fish." The squid is
caught by jigging up and down a lead weight filled with wire spikes
and painted bright red. It seizes the weight with its tentacles. When
raised into the boat it releases its hold and squirts a small stream
of black inky fluid. In the water, when attacked, this inky fluid
discolors the water and screens it from its enemy.
The octopus grows to immense size, with many long arms. Two
Newfoundlanders were once fishing in an open boat, when an octopus
attacked the boat, reaching for it with two enormous arms, with the
purpose of dragging it down. One of the fishermen seized an ax that
lay handy in the boat and chopped the arms off. The octopus sank and
all the sea about was made black with its screen of ink. The sections
of arms cut off were nineteen feet in length. They are still on
exhibition in the St. Johns Museum, where I have seen them many times.
Shortly afterward a dead octopus was found, measuring, with tentacles
spread, forty feet over all. It was not, however, the same octopus
which attacked the fishermen, for that must have been much larger.
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