WHAT DID HE SEE?

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1163, 26 June 1911, Page 4

WHAT DID HE SEE?

LAUNCH MAN AND OCTOPUS. (By TdJozrt'DU.—Eoecial Correspondent.* Auckland, Juno 24. The latest fish story comes in tho shapo of a letter from a puzzled correspondent to one of tho dailies here. It is:—"Whilo out for a run in my launch yesterday just olf Orakei wo were surprised to sec three long things standing straight up out of the water about 300 yards ahead of us, and going in the same direction as ourselves. Alter a while they went slowly under, but came up again in a minute or so. This continued until we got within about 30 yards of the thing when it disappeared altogether. Tho objects that wero sticking out of tho water were just like elephants' trunks, and fully 4ft. long. We never saw any sigh of a body, so could not make out what il was for some few minutes. After wo had passed the place we were surprised to see a largo fish—considerably larger than our baat (22ft.), making towards the North Head, and swimming on top of the water nearly all tho while. After guessing nl sorts of things, we camo to the conclusion that tho first object must have been a huge octopus swimming, on the surface, with three of his feelers in-the air. As I have never heard of an octopus swimming on the surface before, I was wondering whether any of your readers had ever seen anything like'it. After seeing Hie largo fish, which looked like n whale, we thought that perhaps it had disturbed tho octopus, mid made it como to tho top."