120 Beautiful Shells. 
round, staring eyes, and numerous legs or arms, 
whichever you please to call them, all twisting and 
twining about like so many serpents, is a much 
more formidable-looking individual. A strange 
fellow is this altogether ; he has a shell, but he does 
not use it for a covering, he carries it inside of him, 
and it serves the purpose of a sort of backbone. 
It is horny and calcareous, light and porous, as our 
readers well know, having most likely often used it 
to take out unsightly blots, or erase mistakes in their 
copy or cyphering books. 
When Mr. Sepia walks abroad, he sticks his 
little round body upright, so that his eyes and 
mouth, which is armed with a parrot-like beak, are 
brought close to the surface over which he passes, 
while his long twining legs go sprawling about in 
all directions. On the insides of these legs are a 
great number of small circular suckers, by means of 
which the animal can fix itself to any object so 
tightly, that it is almost impossible to detach it 
without tearing off part of the limb. Woe be to 
the poor unfortunate fish that chances to come in 
its way; the snaky arms are thrown around it, and 
made fast, and away goes the cephalopod for a ride, 
eating on the road to lose no time, on the finny 
steed that carries it. In some species each of the 
