CUTTLES AND SQUIDS. 



69 



internal shell, or " sepiostaire " is visible, and death follows. 

 The animal cannot see behind it ; and so it often happens that it 

 similarly comes to grief in its natural habitat, especially in calm 

 weather, when, as Edward Forbes says, " not a ripple breaks upon 

 the pebbles to warn it that the shore is near. An enemy appears : 

 the creature ejects its ink,^^ like a sharp-shooter discharging his 

 rifle ere he retreats, and then, darting away, tail foremost, under 

 cover of the cloud, grounds itself high upon the beach, and perishes 

 there." 



The following are the dimensions of a fine male SeJ)ia which I 

 dissected at the Brighton Aquarium, July 3, 1875 '- — 



Specimens of another of the Sepiidae, the diminutive SeJ)iola 

 (S. Ro7ideletii)—2. veritable Liliputian among cuttles— are some- 

 times caught in shrimp-nets, and brought to the Aquarium. The 

 mantle-sac enclosing the body of this little Tom Thumb cepha- 

 lopod is about an inch in length, and in shape like a short wide- 

 bore mortar. The head may be supposed to be the tompion 

 fixed in the muzzle ; and where the trunnions would be are two 

 little flat fins of rounded outline. The large goggle eyes seem to 

 be out of all proportion to the size of their owner \ but they are, 

 apparently, *'all the better to see with," either to watch for a 

 tender young shrimp coming within arm's reach, or to perceive 

 an approaching enemy. Sepiola, like its comparatively Brob- 

 dingnagian relatives, has the faculty of rapidly changing colour, 

 and, if angered or alarmed, its hue is almost instantaneously altered 



• See page 94. 



