76 NOTES ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE BELL ROCK. 



with its eight long tentacles squirming in all directions, its 

 body a slobbery mass of animated mucilage. Although only 

 a foot in diameter it required some force to detach it from 

 the rock, as each of the tentacles is furnished with rows of 

 suckers on its under side. By extending the tentacles in 

 front, the animal was able to move along the Rock surface, 

 not in a jerky fashion, as might be expected, but with a 

 continuous gliding motion, clearly showing that each sucker 

 acted independently of its neighbour. If taken hold of, one 

 or other of the tentacles is immediately twisted round the 

 hand with a tenacity that seems surprising considering the 

 size of the animal, and one can then realise to some extent 

 the stories occasionally heard of its giant relatives of the 

 tropics. Irritated, it appears to have the properties of the 

 chameleon, flushing through all the gradations of colour in 

 quick succession, and latterly discharging a jet of fluid of 

 inky blackness. This resource, however, was utterly useless 

 in the present circumstances, but, on placing the animal in 

 a shallow pool of water, its use was at once apparent, for 

 on being touched it immediately rendered itself invisible by 

 the inky fluid discharged. Frequent irritation, however, 

 exhausted its stock of ink, and latterly only clear water 

 was expelled. This expulsion, when effected 011 the Rock, 

 was accompanied by an audible murmur. The narrow slits of 

 eyes closely resemble those of a dog-fish, and the head, with 

 the anterior tentacle elevated in the air, grotesquely reminds 

 one of an elephant in the act of trumpeting. 



