EGGS OF CUTTLE-FISH. 313 



vailing belief of different tribes of mankind 

 whose opinions it is evident could not have been 

 influenced or affected by the traditions of each 

 other, but must have resulted from the occasional 

 appearances of the monster itself in different 

 quarters of the globe." 



The eggs of the cuttle-fish are almost as re- 

 markable as the animal itself. They are oval, or 

 rather spindle-shaped bodies, about the size of 

 grapes, and somewhat like them in colour, one 

 end of each egg is furnished with a fleshy stalk 

 and the other is prolonged to a nipple-shaped 

 point, and the skin is tough like india-rubber. 

 By means of the stalk, the egg is attached to 

 branches of seaweed, and numbers of them 

 united to the same substance form a cluster by 

 no means unlike a bunch of grapes, and appear- 

 ing to an observer unacquainted with their real 

 character to be some species of sea plant. These 

 eggs or bladders contain at first a yoke of a white 

 colour enclosed in transparent albumen, but as it 

 advances toward maturity the contents assume the 

 form of the young cuttle-fish, which is at length 

 excluded, like the chick from the shell, by the 

 opening of the envelope in which it is enclosed. 



