A n at o my of Cu tt lefts /ies. g 3 



the body the mouth is brought into the middle of 

 the foot in the adult, and hence the name ' head- 

 footed' {Cephalopoda} given to this class. The lobes 

 into which the foot is divided are usually eight or 

 ten in number and are long tapering muscular pro- 

 cesses which in the common species in our own seas 

 vary from a few inches to two feet in length, but in 

 one rare form they attain very much greater size. 

 During the year 1875, a specimen was captured on 

 the Irish coast, with arms thirty feet long. 



The mouth is furnished with a strong beak, like 

 that of a parrot, with two formidable horny jaws. By 

 reason of the numerous suckers on the arms (a com- 

 mon octopus possessing about 60 on each arm), 

 which seize hold of their prey with a cupping-glass- 

 like tenacity, these cuttlefishes are among the most 

 terrible of marine monsters, and those of large size 

 would probably prove to be more than a match even 

 for man himself. 



Each of the sucking disks is singularly perfect in 

 its structure. There is a muscular adhesive disk of a 

 circular shape, around whose edge is a hard crown of 

 horny consistence, and in the centre there is a mus- 

 cular retractile piston, whose contraction produces a 

 vacuum, and thus causes a close adhesion of the sucker. 



There is a large mantle cavity with a strong mus- 

 cular wall. When the animal is swimming it moves 

 with its arms directed backwards and the upper or 

 pointed end of the body forwards; in this position the 

 opening of the mantle cavity or funnel is directed 

 backwards, and the propulsive force which drives the 

 body forwards is the sudden and often repeated con- 



