416 Natural History of Molluscous Animals : -^ 



in general, and they will frequently tear large pieces from 

 those which have swallowed the baited hook, and deprive the 

 fisherman of his gain. I have had more than one specimen 

 of ioligo vulgaris brought me, which, adhering with a fatal 

 tenacity to the fish, had allowed itself to be drawn from the 

 water ; and in the stomachs of others I have found not only 

 the undigested remains of this food, but the beaks of small 

 individuals of their own species. The tribes, again (Octo- 

 podeae and A^autili) (See Mr. Owen's beautiful and perfect 

 Meinoir on the Pearly Nautilus, p. 24.), whose habit is to crawl 

 along the bottom, and seek concealment in rocky places, prey 

 principally on the larger Crustacea, which find in their hard 

 spiny shells, and their powerful claws, no protection against 

 these voracious enemies. In the Mediterranean, the Octopi 

 are held in detestation by the fishermen, because of the havoc 

 they commit among the most esteemed species of lobsters and 

 crabs, which is so extensive that scarcely any are to be found 

 in their usual haunts during the summer season, and what 

 have chanced to escape evince, by their mutilated condition, 

 the peril they have run (Cuvier, lib. cit» Mem, i. 4.) Ac- 

 cording to the early naturalists, the cuttle entraps its prey, 

 partly, at least, by stratagem : " and albeit otherwise it be a 

 very brutish and senselesse creature, so foolish withall, that it 

 will swim and come to a man's hand ; yet it seems after a 

 sort to be witty and wise, keeping of house and maintaining a 

 familie : for all that they can take they carry home to their 

 nest. When they have eaten the meat of the fishes, they 

 throw the empty shels out of dores, and lie as it were in am- 

 buscado behind, to watch and catch fishes that swimme 

 thither," (Holland's Pliny, i. 250). Pliny also informs us, 

 on the authority of Trebius Niger, that the Cephalopoda 

 " are most desirous and greedie of cockles, muscles, and such 

 like shell fishes ;" and, in order to reach the animal scathless, 

 they " lie in wait to spie when the said cockles, &c., gape wide 

 open, and put in a little stone between the shels, but yet beside 

 the flesh and bodie of the fish, for feare lest, if it touched and 

 felt it, she would cast it forth again : thus they theeve, and 

 without all danger, and in securitie get out the fleshie sub- 

 stance of the meat to devoure it : the poor cockles draw their 

 shels together for to clasp them between (as is above said), 

 but all in vaine, for by reason of a wedge between, they will 

 not meet close, nor come neere together. See how subtle 

 and craftie in this point these creatures be, which otherwise 

 are most sottish and senseless." (Holland's Plifiy, i. 251.) 



The cuttlefish, I need scarcely remark, are all guiltless of 

 this clever stratagem : their warfare, though cruel, is open, 



