Cuttles 387 



Islands, but it is also recorded from Liverpool, 

 Lamlash Bay, the Firth of Forth, and the Irish 

 coasts. The young are gregarious, but the adult 

 lives a solitary life in some rock cavity of the 

 laminarian zone, the door of which is strewn with 

 the broken shells of the bivalves upon which he 

 chiefly subsists. The arms are connected at their 

 base by a thick web, and the suckers are arranged 

 on them in two rows. There is no shell, though it 

 is indicated by the presence of two small stylets 

 embedded in the mantle. The colour is normally 

 dusky, varying to purplish, yellowish, or grey, and 

 spotted with orange, brown, and purple. The length 

 of the body without the arms is only about 6 

 inches, but the eight arms measure a couple of feet 

 each. In the male there is a peculiar modification 

 ijcectocotyhis) of the third arm on the right side. 

 It is much shorter than the others, has very few 

 suckers, and ends in a flat plate which connects 

 with the basal web by a groove in the skin. The 

 spermatozoa are produced in little cylindrical 

 packets {sperinatopliores), which are probably passed 

 along this groove to the terminal plate. The male 

 of Sepia has been seen to attach similar sperma- 

 tophores to the female, and it may be presumed that 

 a similar transference takes place in Octopus. In 

 certain genera (Argonatita, Ocythoe, and Tremioctopus) 

 of this sub-order, the specialised arm itself, charged 

 with spermatophores, is detached by the male and left 

 with tlie female. When the ova are discharged these 

 packets open and their contents fertilise the eggs. 

 These, to the number of several thousands, are attached 

 to a central cord in long cylindrical masses. 



