SEPIOLA. 219 



throngli the funnel all the time. When it does take to 

 swimming it darts very quickly through the water, and is 

 difficult to catch. When taken out of the water and placed 

 on the hand, it had recourse to an odd mode of progres- 

 sion, turning two or three summersets in regular tumbler- 

 fashion ; first laying hold with its arms, turning over, and 

 laying hold again until it managed to get back into the 

 water. In this species, too, the tentacular arras generally 

 lie concealed within the others." Dr. Johnston remarks 

 of it, " that although kept alive in a basin of sea water 

 for about twelve hours, and repeatedly irritated, it never 

 ejected any inky fluid, with which it is, nevertheless, 

 amply provided." 



It is probable, as has already been remarked, that the 

 majority of British localities of Sepiola relate to this 

 species. Whether Pennant''s S'epia sepiola from the coast 

 of Flintshire was it or not, it is impossible now to say. We 

 have taken it in the Irish Sea ; in fifteen, eighteen, and 

 twenty fathoms, among the Hebrides, and in seven fathoms 

 in the Sound of Skye. Mr. Alder has found it on the 

 coast of Northumberland, and in the Menai Straits : also 

 at Torbay. The week before our lamented friend, William 

 Thompson, of Belfast, died, he submitted to our examina- 

 tion two specimens of SepioliE as possibly distinct. His 

 sagacity did not deceive him in this, any more than in many 

 other similar instances, for one of these little cuttle-fishes 

 taken at Bangor in Ireland, in 1839, by Dr. Drummond, 

 proved to be S. Atlantica, and the other was an Irish ex- 

 ample of the true Sepiola Rondeletii. The statistics of the 

 distribution of the two species have yet to be made out. 



