122 THE HISTORY OF ANIMALS. [u. V, 



form is plain. Many of them perish from their small size 

 and debility. Some have been observed so small that they 

 could not be distinguished, unless they were touched, when 

 they were seen to move. 



3. The sepia also deposits eggs, which resemble large, 

 black, myrtle seeds. They are united together like a bunch 

 of fruit, and are enclosed in a substance which prevents 

 them from separating readily. The male emits his ink 

 upon them, a mucous fluid, which causes their slippery 

 appearance. The ova increase in this way ; and when first 

 produced they are white, but when they have touched the 

 ink they become large and black. When the young sepia, 

 which is entirely formed of the internal white of the ovum, 

 is produced, it makes its way out by the rupture of the 

 membrane of the ovum. 



4. The ovum which the female first produces is like hail, 

 and to this the young sepia is attached by the head, as birds 

 are attached to the abdomen. The nature of the umbilical 

 attachment has never been observed, except that as the sepia 

 increases the white always becomes less, and at last entirely 

 disappears, like the yolk of the eggs of birds. 



5. The eyes are at first very large in these as in other 

 animals, as in the diagram. The ovum is seen at A, the eyes 

 at B and C, and the embryo sepia itself at D. The female 

 contains ova during the spring. The ova are produced in 

 fifteen days ; and when the ova are produced they remain 

 for fifteen days longer like the small seeds of grapes, and 

 when these are ruptured the young sepias escape from the 

 inside. If a person divides them before they have reached 

 maturity, the young sepias emit their foeces aud vary in 

 colour, and turn from white to red from alarm. 



6. The crustaceans incubate upon their ova, which are 

 placed beneath them ; but the polypus and sepia and such 

 like incubate upon their ova wherever they may be depo- 

 sited, and especially the sepia, for the female has often been 

 observed with her abdomen upon the ground, but the female 

 polypus has been observed sometimes placed upon her ova, 

 and sometimes upon her mouth, holding with her tentacula 

 over the hole in which the ova were deposited. The sepia 

 deposits her ova upon the ground among fuci and reeds, 

 or upon any thing thrown in the water, as wood, branches, 



