284 SUPPLEMENT 
We may be assured that they never come out of the water, 
which cannot be averred with equal certainty respecting the 
octopi. 
Their movements are rapid and in all directions, pretty 
nearly like those of fish, and performed by the aid of the 
branchial sac, and of the circular fin which surrounds the 
body, the tentacular appendages being pressed close one 
against the other into a packet pointed in front, and the 
branchial appendages retracted within their cavity. The first 
do not separate except when the animal attempts to seize any 
prey within reach, and they especially serve to retain it, and 
submit it to the action of the powerful teeth with which the 
mouth is armed. As to the branchial appendages, it is pro- 
bable that the sepia can put them forth with rapidity from 
their cavity, and, as it were, shoot them upon an animal at 
some distance from itself, to bring it back within reach of the 
_ tentacular appendages. We may also equally conceive that 
they answer the purpose of hooking the animal to the rocks 
at the bottom of the sea, and thus sheltering it from the 
storms and tempests with which that element is frequently 
agitated ; but this, though probable, can hardly be considered 
as more than conjecture. 
The sepiz are evidently carnivorous. They probably feed 
upon fishes, and especially on the swimming crustacea, which 
live at some distance from the coasts, and which they overtake 
and seize after a pursuit of longer or shorter continuance, like 
the loligo, and not by placing themselves in ambuscade, like 
the octopi. We must nevertheless add, that Aristotle re- 
gards the sepia as a very cunning animal: he says that it not 
only casts forth its ink when it is afraid, as do the octopi and 
loligines, but that it also makes use of this liquor, which it is 
true is more abundant and more coloured than in the former, 
to create around it ‘a thick cloud, in which it envelopes itself, 
either to escape the pursuit of the fishes, or to attract the fish 
