ON CEPHALOPODA. 287 
not probable that the cause which Aristotle assigns for it 
should be the true one. Neither do we think that their ag- 
elutination, which is extremely irregular, and which takes 
place by the pedicle that terminates them, is owing to the 
viscous quality of the semen of the male, which would be 
shed on their upper part, but rather to the viscosity of the 
adventitious membrane of each egg; and it really seems pro- 
bable that an actual intercourse takes place between these 
animals in the same manner as in all the cephalous malaco- 
zoaria. Aristotle also tells us that the female sepia, after 
having totally got rid of her eggs, hatches them in the place 
where she has deposited them. She is often to be seen, he 
avers, with the body resting against the ground and over her 
eggs. 
The eggs of the sepia have an oval form, attenuated at the 
two extremities, one of which is free, and the other prolonged 
into a pedicle of greater or less length, and twisted round 
some foreign body, or even joined to a greater or less number 
of other eggs, in a manner completely inextricable. It is thus 
that the clusters are produced. Their bulk and the number of 
the eggs which compose them are extremely variable ; though 
most frequently, as we have observed, of a black colour, they 
are sometimes of a yellowish white, a little transparent. In 
studying their organization we easily perceive that the en- 
velope of the egg is nothing but a gelatinous matter, more or 
less thick, which may be divided into an indefinite number of 
laminz, but which is not really organized. In the interior is 
the egg, properly so called, composed of the germ and of the 
vitelline mass, in an inverse ratio of development, according 
to the period at which it has been laid. ‘The vitelline mass 
is almost of a white colour. Contained in its egg, the little 
animal has the head and eyes much bigger than they are 
subsequently to be, as Aristotle has most justly observed. In 
