THE DEVIL-FISH AND ITS RELATIVES. 355 



It has also very large eyes in proportion to its size. It is a free SAvim- 

 mer like the cuttle ; its spawn is also left to float freely, but in a large 

 circular mass, consisting of an immense number of branches, all con- 

 taining quantities of ova and united to a common centre. It has been 

 estimated that these " mop-like " masses contain nearly forty thousand 

 eggs. The squid is also privileged to carry an ink-bag, of which he makes 

 very free use ; and many fishermen attempting to catch them have ex- 

 perienced the fate of Tom Hood, of whom Mr. Lee tells the anecdote 

 that, being unaware of this propensity of the cuttle-fish and squid, and 

 having caught one of the former on his hook while angling in Love 

 Harbor, he laid hold of it to unhook it, and received its full Je^ d'eau in 

 the face. On being asked what he had on his line, he replied that he 

 did not know exactly, but he thought he had caught a young garden 

 engine ! 



As these sorts of creatures are never eaten in this country, it may 

 be news to some that they are very extensively used as food in many 

 countries at the present time, and that the ancient as well as the mod- 

 ern Greeks considered them a delicacy when properly cooked. One 

 cause of the favor in which they are held by the Orthodox Greek Cath- 

 olics on the shores of the -^gean Sea is the substitute which they oflFer 

 in place of meat and fish, both of which are forbidden during the long 

 fasts of the Greek Church. A cuttle is practically declared not to be 

 a fish, and certainly it is not meat ; and so it finds its way into the pots 

 and frying-pans even of the ecclesiastics during Lent and other fasts in 

 great quantities. A common way of catching them in the Mediterra- 

 nean is by planting traps of stone jars or earthenware tubes, into M'hich 

 they creep, and are thus drawn up and secured. Everywhere they are 

 used for bait, and the Indians of Vancouver's Island and Alaska eat them 

 with relish, as do the inhabitants of China and the western coast of 

 South America. There is a good story told of a party of savants in 

 England endeavoring to make a dish of one, at a special dinner given 

 for the purpose ; but the attempt was a complete failure — no one could 

 swallow a morsel. The ancients described them under the name of 

 polypus, and all classical scholars will recall the frequent references to 

 these animals as articles of diet, especially by the comic poets. 



The greatest enemies to the class of cephalopods are the porpoises, 

 dolphins, and conger-eels. The last do not hesitate to attack ^ven a 

 devil-fish of considerable size, while the young are snapped up by a 

 great variety of fishes. In fact, if the great mass of all the spawn pro- 

 duced by the denizens of the ocean were not devoured or otherwise de- 

 stroyed, the watery world would long ago have become so over-popu- 

 lated as to be unnavigable, and its condition incompatible with the 

 health of the human race. 



