THE HORSESHOE CRAB 



to this poor man. But it was well that his end 

 came as it did, for he might else have died in 

 some gilded saloon, and had an ordinary 

 burial, instead of the soft sand of the sea floor, 

 and the free dirge of gulls and waves and 

 storm. 



In the highest group of mollusks, those 

 which occur in the group of '' feet around the 

 head," belong the nautilus and the cuttlefish. 

 Of these only the small squid is found here- 

 abouts, and it is sometimes thrown up dead 

 or dying in great numbers on the beach. It 

 is from eight inches to a foot long, and w^hen 

 caught in a pool by the receding tide it is very 

 difficult to see, for it simulates closely the 

 color of the sand. As it swims along it 

 changes color almost instantly by a muscular 

 action of the pigment cells covering the sur- 

 face, so that from a dark brown creature it 

 suddenly becomes gray, or yellow, or spotted, 

 or nearly white. Its large eyes and sucker- 

 bearing tentacles, which stick tightly when 

 applied to the hand, are strange things, while 

 its mouth is provided with two dark, horny 

 jaws, like the beak of a parrot. I haA^e found 

 the jaws of two dozen squids in the stomach 

 of one shearwater I shot off the end of Cape 



273 



