Cuttlc-FisJi /. cccJi. 1 05 



move with great rapidity. lie is also provided with 

 an ink-bag, from which he ejects a cloud of colored 

 fluid, and thus baffles his foe by the rapidity of his 

 backward motion, and the inky screen that he raises 

 before him. His tentacles are lined with miniature 

 air-pumps, by means of which he fastens securely 

 upon his prey. There is the nicely-fitting receiver, 

 with its yielding edge, adapting itself to various sur- 

 faces, and there is the piston and the muscle to move 

 it. In som rs, a sharp claw rises from the 



piston and enters the victim by the very acti< n that 

 draws him firmly against the suckers ; and the two 

 longest tentacles, th :icd upon their prey by 



the double action .f pressure and sharpened cla 

 are held firmly together by other suckers, like for- 

 ceps by the rivet, so that no instrument that man 

 could devise would be so perfectly fitted for its pur- 

 pose. 



The silken cords by which the pinnas and 

 mussels anchor themselv. already been 



described. The perforated shell of the Terebra- 

 tula, through which the fleshy anchor-cable is drawn, 

 is of similar character. 



Among the articulates, the examples of special 

 adaptation meet us on every hand. No more per- 

 fect lances are found than those that arm the leech 

 for his bloody work. If we cannot see the use of 

 all the structure for the leech in his common mode 

 of life, no one who has seen him fasten upon his 

 prey with his miniature cupping-glasses, make the 

 incision and deplete the veins, can regard the whole 



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