CHAPTER NINE 



Loligo: A Monograph of the Squid 



answer was 



N aspirant to the trade of letters 

 once asked a noted writer what 

 I course should be pursued by the ap- 

 prentice in order best to attain to 

 perfection and success. The master's 

 'The first thing you should do is to 

 take Literature and wring its neck!" 



I have always considered this cryptic injunction 

 to be nothing if not original, by Flaubert to his 

 disciple de Maupassant, as one of the finest phrases 

 coming from the French. Now, although it is not 

 my aim to arrive at immortality in following any 

 such advice, I am moved to establish a precedent, 

 nevertheless, in the expectation that my form of 

 presentation will confer upon the reader a clearer 

 understanding of the creature which forms the sub- 

 ject of this monograph. For what I purpose to do is 

 precisely this : I am going to depart from the cus- 



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