44 



GLIMPSES OF NATURE. 



the squids, or Loligos, with their arrow-shaped tail- 

 fins and their elongated bodies ; and there is the 

 Argonaut, or paper nautilus, and the pearly nautilus, 

 with its distinct shell, familiar when polished to every- 

 body as a drawing-room flower-vase. 



This, then, was my first proceeding in the case 

 of the "cuttlefish-bone" so called to instruct my 

 friend in the nature and forms of the cuttlefishes. 

 This done, the next step consisted in my reminding 



Fig. 13. Octopior "Devil-fishes." 



him that these animals are Molluscs that is to say, 

 they are relatives of the snails, oysters, mussels, d 

 hoc genus omne. 



In a word, cuttlefishes are " shell-fish," properly so 

 designated. They stand at the head of the molluscan 

 group, just as quadrupeds (including homo sapiens)stand 

 at the top of the backboned type of animal life. This 

 remark settles the position of the octopus and its 



