ON CEPHALOPODA. 291 
will even adhere to it for some time after death. This ad- 
herence will produce a pretty strong redness in the part 
affected by it, but it does not seem probable that this ever 
amounts to inflammation. 
The octopi are animals eminently carnivorous, and particu- 
larly live in the anfractuosities of rocks, where they place 
themselves in ambuscade, concealing their body, properly so 
called, in the cavern which they inhabit,.and letting nothing 
come forth but their arms, which they make use of to reach, 
enlace, and draw in their prey. They sometimes, however, 
do this more openly; in fact, Belon informs us that he saw 
an octopus fighting for more than an hour with a crab, in the 
port of Corcyra. Aristotle says that this animal has the 
faculty of changing colour, and assuming that of the bodies 
which surround it, and this for the purpose of more easily 
catching fish: he adds, that it does so likewise when under 
the influence of fear, and at the same time it darts its ink, 
the colour of which is rather red than black. 
It appears that the octopi make their principal food of 
crustacea, as Aristotle observed long ago. M. de Blainville 
informs us that he has many times heard the fishermen com- 
plain of the injury done them by these voracious animals, not 
only from the quantity of crustacea which they destroy, but 
chiefly by frightening those of which they are unable to gain 
possession, and forcing them to quit the localities which they 
had previously inhabited. The octopi also feed on conchyli- 
ferous mollusca; and Pliny relates concerning them the trick 
which has also been attributed to apes, of placing a little 
stone between the two valves of oysters, of which they are 
extremely fond, so as to prevent them from closing, and that 
then they extract the flesh: on this Pliny cries out, “ Such is 
the wonderful intelligence of animals, even the most stupid !” 
But how could an octopus take up a little stone and place it 
so adroitly, even supposing that the semi-hiatus of the oyster, 
U2 
