4GO THE OCEAN WORLD. 



Gahi (Fig. 320), we have two extreme forms represented, both taken 

 from the magnificent work of MM. D'Orbigny and Ferussac, on the 

 Cephalopodes acetdbulifores. These molluscs are whitish-blue and 

 transparent, covered with spots of bright red. The osselet is 

 lanceolate that of the male elongated and somewhat resembling a 

 feather, that of the female much broader and more obtuse. Their 

 head is short, furnished with two large projecting eyes ; the mouth 

 is surrounded with ten arms, provided with suckers, two of these 

 being much longer than the others, having peduncles or foot-stalks. 



The internal bone of the calmar differs much from that of the 

 cuttles ; it is thin, horny, transparent, and somewhat resembling a 

 feather, from a portion of which the barbs have been removed. Their 

 food consists chiefly of small fishes and molluscs. With the greater 

 fishes and cetaceae they carry on constant war. They are caught and 

 used for various purposes ; along the coast they are eaten ; the fisher- 

 men use them as bait, especially in fishing for cod. 



It is no easy task to separate the real from the fabulous history of 

 the Cephalopods. Aristotle and Pliny have alike assisted, by their mar- 

 vellous' relations, to .throw that halo of wonder round it which the light 

 of modern science has not altogether dispelled. Pliny the Ancient 

 relates the history of an enormous cuttle-fish which haunted the coast 

 of Spain, and destroyed the fishing-grounds. He adds that this 

 gigantic creature was finally taken, that its body weighed seven 

 hundred pounds, and that its arms were ten yards in length. Its 

 head came by right to Lucullus, to whose gastronomical privileges be 

 all honour. It was so large, says Pliny, that it filled fifteen amphorae, 

 and weighed seven hundred pounds also. 



Some naturalists of the Kenaissance, such as Olaus Magnus and 

 Denis de Montfort, gave credit which they are scarcely justified in 

 doing to the assertions of certain writers of the north of Europe, who 

 believed seriously in the existence of a sea-monster of prodigious size 

 which haunted the northern seas. This monster has received the 

 name of the Kraken. The Kraken was long the terror of these seas ; 

 it arrested ships in spite of the action of the wind, sails, and oars, 

 often causing them to founder at sea, while the cause of shipwreck 

 remained unsuspected. Denis de Montfort gives a description and 

 representation of this Kraken, which he calls the Colossal Poulpe, in 

 which the creature is made to embrace a three-masted ship in its vast 



