SEPIAD.E. CUTTLE. 165 



Cuttle-fishes are very common in the Mediterranean, 

 and are highly prized by the Neapolitans. The modern 

 Greeks also make them, and especially the Octopodia, a 

 principal article of food ; they dry them in great quan- 

 tities, and store them away for use to be boiled or fried. 

 Several kinds of Cephalopoda are eaten abroad. The 

 Octopus vulgaris is eaten when young and small at Nice, 

 where it is much more plentiful in the market than at 

 Genoa; and if it weighs less than a pound, and is still 

 tender, it is much esteemed. Those who purchase it 

 generally hammer it well with a stick before cooking it; 

 and it is also stated that the Greeks are careful to drag 

 it for some time upon a stone, holding it by the opening 

 in the body. The flesh is said to have a peculiar taste, 

 consequently that of the cuttlefish and calamar (loUyo) 

 is preferred. At Naples, shellfish merchants of Sta. 

 Lucia sell them ready cooked.* 



These Octopods, called Octopodia by the modern 

 Greeks, are regularly exposed for sale in the markets of 

 Smyrna; as they are in the bazaars of India; and the 

 North American Indians are also partial to thetn. 



Plato, the comic writer, says : — 



" Good-sized polypus in season 



Should be boiled, — to roast them's treason, 

 But if early, and not big, 



Roast them ; boil'd ain't worth a fig."f 



M. Verany gives the following description of it: — 

 "The common Poiilp [the polpo of the Italians] is 

 scattered throughout the Mediterranean, and is found 

 on the coast of the Atlantic at the Canaries. Ac- 

 cording to facts collected by M. D'Orbigny, it has 



* See notes, ' Life in Normandy,' vol. i. 



y Athenaeus, Deipnosophists, vol. i. bk. i. c. 8, p. 8. 



