CEPHALOPODS. 457 



The flattened form of their bodies is favourable to a coasting life, by 

 permitting them to rest easily on the bottom. Still they do not 

 remain all the year round upon the coast. The cold in temperate 

 regions, and the opposite reason in warm regions, leads them to with- 

 draw from the shore, to which they only return in the spring. They 

 are rarely seen in the Channel in winter, but with the vernal sun 

 they appear in large shoals. What is the mechanism by which 

 these animals are moved? When the cuttle-fish wishes to swim 

 rapidly and backwards, they advance in the water by means of the 

 locomotive tube, sending back the ambient liquid. When they wish 

 to approach a prey slowly in order to seize it, they swim by the aid 

 of their fins and arms. In order to swim backwards, they contract 

 the arms provided with tentacles, and spread out horizontally the 

 arms without tentacles. 



The cuttles are flesh-eaters, and tolerably voracious. They feed 

 themselves upon fishes, molluscs, and crustaceans. They are true 

 aquatic brigands, who kill not to feed themselves, but for the sake of 

 killing ; and Nature, by a just equilibrium, applies to them the lex 

 talionis. They fall victims, in their turn, to the vengeful jaws of the 

 porpoises and dolphins. Such is the terrible law of Nature : some 

 must die that others may live. Michelet gives us a glimpse of the 

 manner in which the dolphins dispose of the cuttle-fish in his 

 " Livre de la Mer." " These lords of the ocean," he says, " are so 

 delicate in their tastes that they eat only the head and arms, which 

 are both tender and of easy digestion. They reject the hard parts, 

 and especially the after-part of the body. The coast at Koyan, for 

 example, is covered with thousands of these mutilated cuttle-fish. 

 The porpoises take most incredible bounds, at first to frighten them, 

 and afterwards to run them down ; in short, after their feast, they 

 give themselves up to gymnastics." 



In the spring the cuttle-fishes deposit their eggs, but without 

 abandoning them. On the contrary, they exhibit a truly maternal 

 care, taking much trouble to attach them to some submarine body, 

 in which position the temperature of the water serves to hatch the 

 eggs. Sepia officinalis, for example, chooses, at the moment of laying, 

 a stem of Fucus, a foot of Gorgonia, or some other solid submarine 

 body not less in dimensions than the little finger, and there it firmly 

 attaches its eggs, which are pear-shaped, that is, pointed at one 



