ON CEPHALOPODA. 303 
fact, exist some time before the ordinary tentacula make their 
appearance. Finally, when on the point of issuing forth, the 
young calamary differs very little from what it is afterwards 
to be. Its back is already spotted with red. 
The calamary is very generally used as food, and especially 
in Greece ; it is rather an insipid sort of aliment, Fishermen 
employ these animals as baits, cutting them into strips. 
The calamaries are found in all seas, and even in great 
abundance at rather small distances from the shore. Many 
species, however, forming distinct groups, may appertain only 
to certain countries. But the study of the species is not as 
much advanced as might be wished. Molina, in his natural 
history of Chili, defines after his fashion those which exist on 
the shores of this country, in the South Sea. ‘Though it is 
probable that they are new species, it is impossible to be as- 
sured of it, and particularly to insert them with any certainty 
in the catalogue. The first is his sepea unguiculata ; query 
if it be acalamary? the second is sepia hexapus, which would 
be very singular if it were true that the body, which he says 
is of the size of the index finger, is fractured into four or five 
articulations, which decrease in bulk towards the tail, and 
that, on touching it with the hand, one experiences a sort of 
electric commotion; his third species is called tanicata, and 
has the whole body over the ordinary skin enveloped in a black 
and pellucid covering. It is very large, for he adds that some 
were brought to him weighing five hundred pounds. 
NAUTILUS is a denomination employed by the ancient 
naturalists, both Greeks and Romans, and among others by 
Aristotle and Pliny, to designate two animals which can make 
use of their shell as a little boat, to float upon the surface of 
the water. This observation, which perhaps was derived 
from the form of the shell, was afterwards confirmed, at least 
in appearance, by circumstantial details, added by Pliny, 
Alian, Oppian, and Philo, on the mode of navigation of 
