CEPHALOPODS. 315 



podese and Nautili,)* whose habit is to crawl along the bot- 

 tom, and seek concealment in rocky places, prey principally 

 on the larger Crustacea, which find in their hard spiny shells, 

 and their powerful claws, no protection against these vora- 

 cious enemies. In the Mediterranean, the Octopi are held 

 in detestation by the fishermen, because of the havoc they 

 commit among the most esteemed species of lobsters and 

 crabs, which is so extensive that scarcely any are to be found 

 in their usual haunts during the summer season, and what 

 have chanced to escape evince, by their mutilated condition, 

 the peril they have run.f According to the early naturalists, 

 the cuttle entraps its prey, partly, at least, by stratagem : 

 " And albeit otherwise it be a very brutish and senselesse 

 creature, so foolish withall, that it will swim and come to 

 a man's hand ; yet it seems after a sort to be witty and 

 wise, keeping of house and maintaining a familie : for all 

 that they can take they carry home to their nest. When 

 they have eaten the meat of the fishes, they throw the empty 

 shels out of dores, and lie as it were in ambuscado behind, 

 to watch and catch fishes that svvimme thither.";}: Pliny 

 also informs us, on the authority of Trebius Niger, that the 

 Cephalopoda " Are most desirous and greedie of cockles, 

 muscles, and such like shell fishes;" and in order to reach 

 the animal scatheless, they " lie in wait to spie when the 

 said cockles, &c, gape wide open, and put in a little stone 

 between the shels, but yet beside the flesh and bodie of the 

 fish, for feare lest, if it touched and felt it, she would cast it 

 forth again : thus they theeve, and without all danger, and 

 in securitie get out the fleshie substance of the meat to de- 

 voure it : the poor cockles draw their shels together for to 

 clasp them between (as is above said), but all in vaine, for by 

 reason of a wedge between, they will not meet close, nor 

 come neere together. See how subtle and craftie in this 

 point these creatures be, which otherwise are most sottish 

 and senseless."§ 



The cuttlefish, I need scarcely remark, are all guiltless of 

 this clever stratagem : their warfare, though cruel, is open, 

 and they are amply furnished with the necessary weapons. 

 The long flexible arms which encircle the head are set 

 along their inner aspects, with numerous cup-like suckers, 

 which the animal can fix to any object, and the adhesion 

 is strengthened by a horny ring round the edge of each 

 sucker often pointed with sharp curved teeth. (Fig. (>0. a.) 



* Owen's Mem. on the Pearly Nautilus, 24. t Cuvier, Mem. i. 4. 



% Holland's Pliny, i. 250. § Holland's Pliny, i. 251 . 



