CP;PHALOPOI>S. 463 



Tandon remarks, commenting on M. Berthelot's recital, " that this 

 colossal mollusc was sick or exhausted by some recent struggle with 

 some other monster of the deep, which would account for its having 

 quitted its native rocks in the depths of the ocean. Otherwise it 

 would have been more active in its movements, or it would have 

 obscured the waves with the inky liquid which all the Cephalopods 

 have at command. Judging from its size, it would carry at least a 

 barrel of this black liquid, if it had not been exhausted in some recent 

 struggle." 



" Is this mollusc a calmar ?" asks the same writer. " If we might 

 judge from the figure drawn by one of the officers of the Alecton 

 during the struggle, and communicated by M. Berthelot, the animal 

 had terminal fins, like the calmars ; but it has eight equal arms, like 

 the cuttle-fish. Now the calmars have ten, two of them being very 

 long. Was this some intermediate species between the two? Or 

 must we admit, with MM. Crosse and Fisher, that the animal had lost 

 its more formidable tentacles in some recent combat ?"* 



The fifth family, Octopodidse, contains Eledone, Octopus, Pinnoc- 

 topus, CirroteutTiis, Philonexis, and Scsergus. 



The Octopoda, without tentacles, have eight long arms, united at the 

 base by a web ; the suckers in 

 two rows, which are sessile; 

 the eyes fixed ; shell, two short 

 stiles enclosed in the mantle ; 

 the body united to the head by 

 a broad neck-band ; no side- 

 fins; shell internal and rudi- 

 mentary in the British species ; 

 body oval, warty, and without 

 fins, in Octopus ; small and 

 oblong, arms tapering and 

 webbed, and suckers in a single 

 row, in Eledone (Fig. 321). 



In his great work, Professor FI& 321< Eledone - Octopus vulgarls ( Lamarck )- 

 Owen proposes to divide the Cephalopods into two groups, which he 



* Is it necessary to say that even this account apparently so well authenticated, 

 not to speak of the representation drawn on the spot should be taken " cum grano 

 ""ED. 



