CHAPTER XII 

 THE CUTTLE-FISH OR SQUID 



WE now come to the consideration of one of the 

 most widely distributed, most useful, and withal 

 most extraordinary of all the denizens of all the 

 seas, the curious shell-less mollusc known generally as 

 the Squid. For some strange reason, which I do not 

 pretend to fathom, an enormous number of otherwise 

 well-read people profess knowledge of him under the 

 name of Octopus. Now it should be known that the Oc- 

 topus is a very humble member of this great molluscari 

 family, never growing very large, and entirely indebted 

 for his fame to the splendid but fatally inaccurate 

 pen of Victor Hugo in the ' Toilers of the Sea.' If 

 high art in fiction be to clothe the utterly impossible 

 as well as improbable in such fascinating language 

 that the reader shall be crammed for the rest of his 

 life with absurdities, then Victor Hugo was indeed 

 the greatest fictional artist that ever lived. But 

 inaccuracy of statement is a peculiarly French cha- 

 racteristic, as most dabblers in science know very 

 well. However, I do not wish to be ungrateful, and 

 I will at once admit that, utterly unreliable as Victor 

 Hugo is in any matter of fact, the fascination of his 

 work is its own ample justification. 



The hall-mark of all the Cephalopoda, or head- 

 footed ones,' is hideousness, and their chief character- 

 istics, voracity and omnivorousness. To begin with 



ia7 



