224 Octopus and Squids. 



FIG. 26. estuaries, whither they are taken in great 



numbers by the shrimpers in their trawls. 

 They are of both sexes, and the females are 

 then in gravid condition. The CUTTLK-FISH 

 (Sepia officinalis) is more irregular in its 

 visits, but has been obtained in both Kent 

 and Essex seaboard, and we have obtained 

 small fair-sized examples in the Thames 

 estuary. Of the SQUIDS (Loliyo), three 

 species are more or less of frequent occur- 

 Common Cuttle-fish, rence round both counties, viz., the COM- 

 (Sepia officinalis.) MQy g QUID ^ L wlga), the smaller sized 

 L. media and FORBES SQUID (L. Forbesii). In November, 1891, 

 a large specimen of the last-mentioned was taken by spratters 

 off the mouth of the Crouch river. It measured close on 

 2j- feet, body and arms included, its pen (cuttle-bone) being 

 some 15 inches long.* 



The fishermen usually discriminate between the long- 

 shaped, arrow-tailed Squids and the flask-shaped suckers 

 octopods, without further differentiation. At Folkestone, 

 though, Cuttle-fish are familiarly known as " Ink-spewers," 

 " Tortoises " (from hunching up their backs) and " Man- 

 suckers, "f 



SHRIMP, CRAB AND LOBSTER KIND (= CRUSTACEA). 



Around Kent and Essex is famous ground for certain kinds 

 of stalk-eyed crustaceans, the shrimp being of the greatest 

 mercantile value ; whereas lobster and edible crab are sparse in 

 comparison, and thus their fisheries are of less importance, 

 commercially. There are, however, immense swarms of di- 

 minutive sessile-eyed (without stalks) crustaceans which, on 

 account of their very small dimensions, are of no utility as 



* See "Notes of two days' Trawling and Dredging in the River Crouch, Oct. 10th 

 and 15th, 1891." Essex Nat. VI., 1892. 



t Buckland, " Curiosities of Natural History," 2nd Ser., 1860. 



