Insatiable Nightmares 1 35 



although their numbers must be enormous. Some 

 of them (I do not quote the appalHng nomenclature 

 given them by scientific naturalists) are amazingly 

 hideous in colour, in outline and disposition of armour 

 over their gelatinous bodies. So well are they protected 

 that it is exceedingly doubtful whether any animal 

 smaller or less well armed than the cachalot can ever 

 successfully interfere with them, while it is very certain 

 that, in addition to preying upon all or any of their 

 own kind inferior to them in size, they are terrible 

 enemies to the large fish who chance to stray within 

 the gloomy circle where they lie in wait, surrounded 

 by sepia-coloured water diffused from the natural 

 reservoir of that murky fluid. 



In order that they may more fully and freely carry 

 out their nefarious designs, they possess eyes larger 

 and more powerful in proportion to their size than 

 does any other creature, not excepting insects with 

 their thousand-faceted eyes. These great optical 

 mirrors, black as an inkpool and lidless, not even a 

 nictitating membrane shielding their all-embracing 

 glare, are set one on each side of the cylindrical head, 

 on which they occupy so much space that their side 

 edges nearly touch. And as the head itself is borne 

 upon a column of soft, gristly, boneless substance so 

 that it can turn every way, with a universal ball-and 

 socket-joint movement, it must be impossible for any 

 object to escape that devouring purview. 



The adjuncts to the eyes are the restless tentacles, 

 a living, palpitating network, never still, always 

 quivering like the petals of a sea anemone, which most 

 people have watched in an aquarium. Then these 

 Cephalopoda have an additional weapon granted them 

 in that each one of the curious acetahulae, sucking discs 

 or air-pump receivers, whatever we like to call them, 



