490 



THE OCEAN WORLD. 



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 cal- 

 mars ; but it had eight equal 

 arms, like the cuttle-fish. 

 Now the calmars have ten, 

 two of them being very ] ong. 

 Was this some intermediate 

 species between the two ? 

 Or must we admit, with MM. 

 Crosse and Fisher, that the 

 animal had lost its more for- 

 midable tentacles in some 

 recent combat?"'" 



We now leave the section 

 of the Decapoda, and com- 

 mence the examination of 



the last two families of the Dibranchiate Cephalopods, which belong 

 to the Odopoda. 



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

 topus, Cirroteuthis,Philonexis, and Sccerugus, and contains Cephalopods 

 having eight long arms, united at the base by a web ; the suckers in 

 two rows, which are sessile ; the eyes fixed ; shell, two short styles 

 enclosed in the mantle; the body united to the head by a broad 

 neck-band ; no side fins. The body is oval, warty, and without fins 

 in Octopus (Fig. 329). We have figured, as other species of the genus, 

 O. macropus (Fig. 330), O. brevipes (Fig. 331), and O. horridus 

 (Fig. 332); it is small and oblong, arms tapering and webbed, and 

 suckers in a single row, in Eledom. 



Fig. 329. Octopus vulgaris (Lamarck). 



* The figure, Plate XXII., represents the animal with ten arms. 



