CEPHALOPOD.S. 



thus, at last, it is brought within the action of 

 the powerful beak of the cuttle-fish, which soon 

 makes its way through its crust, and devours it 

 shell and all. Even when at a distance, by 

 means of its long arms, the cuttle-fish can lay 

 hold of it and drag it towards it ; and the 

 poulpe, which has not these arms, makes up for 

 it by having longer legs. 



The argonaut probably uses similar means to 

 master its prey, and finds some defence in its 

 shell, but the nautilus has a still stronger castle, 

 which it may be supposed defies the bite of the 

 Crustacean ; its oral organs are calculated for 

 closer combat, but the tentacles appear less 

 adapted for holding fast their prey, not being 

 visibly furnished with suckers, but what they 

 want in power is made up in numbers, since in 

 lieu of eight or ten tentacular organs, they have 

 nearly a hundred. So diversified are the ways 

 and instruments by which infinite WISDOM, 

 POWER, and GOODNESS enables its creatures to 

 fulfil the ends for which he created them : and 

 so an equilibrium is maintained in every part of 

 creation. 



The fossil species are mostly called by one 

 name, Ammonites, as if they were the horns of 

 the Egyptian Jupiter, and which, if any of them 

 are now in existence, probably frequent the 

 depths of ocean, and do not, like the argonaut 

 or nautilus, visit its surface, to tell an admiring 



