504 THE AQUARIAN NATURALIST. 



give birth to the young of a pretty Natica (Natica 

 monilifera, Lam.). 



The eggs of the Purpura are enclosed in little urn- 

 shaped vesicles, of a membranous texture and yel- 

 lowish colour, often tinged with pink, and may be 

 met with standing erect, attached to the surface of 

 rocks or stones, or sometimes on the parent shells 

 themselves. Each of these little urns will be found, 

 on close examination, to contain many young ones, 

 which when mature escape from their confinement. 

 Mr. Peach observed, that " so long a time as four 

 months sometimes elapsed before the vesicle opened ; 

 and then the included whelklings did not quit their 

 cradle all at once, but took their time in coming out, 

 according to their individual dispositions ; doubtless 

 the quick-minded and more curious commencing 



%j^ The eggs of the Cephalopods or Cuttle-fishes are likewise 

 interesting objects of study, although the animals themselves, 

 from their rapacious habits, and the black secretion with which 

 they occasionally convert the water around them into ink, are 

 scarcely admissible into a well-regulated aquarium. 



These eggs are always clustered together, and the pattern 

 of the cluster varies in the different families. In the Sepia 

 it resembles very exactly, both in size and colour, a bunch 

 of black grapes (PL VUL fig. 16). In the Octopus they are 

 irregularly heaped in bundles, attached to Algse ; and in the 

 Loligo or Calamary they are imbedded in a regular series of 

 cells, in a long gelatinous intestiniforni mass, from eight to 

 twelve inches in length, many of them being united together 

 by ligaments derived from a common centre ; so that the cluster, 

 when mature and entire, might be compared to a woollen mop : 

 indeed the eggs are so numerous, that Bohadsch calculated a 

 cluster of the average size to give birth to not fewer than 

 39,760 young squids ! 



