208 



OCTOPODIDjE. 



The cuttle-fishes of tins family have mostly more or 

 less globose, inflated bodies, unprovided (except in a single 

 genus, and that not represented in the British seas) with 

 fins. They have rather small heads, prominent eyes 

 protected by eye-lids, fleshy lips to their mouths, and 

 strongly curved compressed beaks. Their arms are eight 

 in number, and all similar though more or less unequal ; 

 they bear sessile suckers. The mantle is always at- 

 tached to the neck. The members of this group have no 

 internal pen or shell. In the genus Argonaut a, however, 

 we find an external shell developed. They are active 

 animals, swimming and creeping with facility, but living 

 chiefly among the crevices of rocky ground. 



Their eggs are globular, firm, and united in bunches of 

 comparatively few. 



OCTOPUS. Lamarck. 



Animal with a rounded or oblong body ; head bearing 

 eight .similar arms provided with two rows of sessile suckers 

 on their inner surfaces, and connected by an intcrbrachial 

 web near their bases. Beak strongly compressed. 



The species of this genus were the Polypi of the ancients. 

 Leach proposed to retain the name Polypus for the group, 

 but the general use of the Lamarckian appellation induces 

 us. independent of its partial priority, to retain it. 



