THE SQUID FAMILY. 



167 



A species of Calamaiy found on the coast of Greenland, the Gonatus amoena, which, in the form 

 of its pen and of the animal itself, resembles Loligo in most respects, has four series of cups on its 

 eight poda, or feet, and on its two long tentacular feelers it has numerous small cups, and a single 

 large fixed cup armed with a hook. 



The Sejrioteut/tis, of which thirteen species are known, is also closely related to Loligo. It 

 has lateral fins as long as the body, and sometimes attains to three feet in length. It is widely dis- 

 tributed geographically from the West Indies to the Cape, the Red Sea, Java, and Australia. 



A singular little form, only two inches in. length, named Cranchia (in honour of Mr. J. Cranch, 

 Naturalist to the Congo Expedition), has been met with in the open sea off the West Coast of Africa. 

 It makes the nearest approach in general character and form to 

 the Octopods, of any of this division of Calamaries. Its pen is 

 long and narrow, its body large and globular, the head is very 

 small, and the eyes are fixed. The feet are short and have 

 two rows of suckers. The tentacular clubs have four rows of 

 cups, and are finned behind. The funnel is furnished with a 

 valve. Only two species are known, of which Cranchia scabra 

 is the type. 



One of the most diminutive of the Teuthidse is the Sepiola 

 rondeletii of Gesner, a veritable Lilliputian among Squids, some- 

 times caught on the south coast of England in Shrimp-nets. The 

 mantle-sac enclosing the body of this little "Tom Thumb" Cepha- 

 lopod is about an inch in length, and in. shape like a short wide-bore 

 mortar. The head may be supposed to be the tompion fixed in 

 the muzzle j and where the trunnions would be are two little fiat 

 tins of rounded outline. The large goggle eyes seem to be out 

 of all proportion to the size of their owner ; but they are, 

 apparently, " all the better to see with," either to watch for a 

 tender young Shrimp coming within arm's reach, or to perceive 

 an approaching enemy. Sepiola, like its comparatively Brob- 

 dingnagian relatives, has the faculty of rapidly changing colour, 

 and, if angered or alarmed, its hue is almost instantaneously 

 altered from pale parchment dotted with pink to a deep reddish- 

 brown. In its habits this little animal differs as much from the 



Sepia as the latter from the Octopus. It naturally buries itself up to its eyes in the sand ; but as sand 

 is apt to harbour impurities, which in a bowl or tank become corrupt and generate poisonous sulphuretted 

 hydrogen, the bottom of these receptacles is usually covered with fine shingle. It is most interesting 

 to notice, how, in obeying its burrowing propensities, the Sepiola adapts itself to circumstances, and 

 entirely deviates from its customary mode of procedure. To make a sand pit for its hiding-place, it 

 will direct upon it strong jets of water from its funnel, and thus blow out a cavity in which to seat 

 itself, and allow the disturbed particles of sand to settle over and around it; but as the pebbles are too 

 heavy to be thus displaced by its blasting apparatus, it removes them, one at a time, by means of its 

 arms, which are long and strong in proportion to its little short body. (Henry Lee.) 



The pen of Sepiola is half as long as the back of the animal. Six species of this minute Squid 

 are known from the coasts of Norway, Britain, the Mediterranean, the Mauritius, Japan, and 

 Australia, 



A sub-genus of Sepiola, named Rossia, by Owen (after Captain Sir James Ross, R.N.), attains a 

 length of from three to five inches, and is represented by six species, one of which is found as far north 

 as Regent Inlet, the others being from Great Britain, the Mediterranean, and Manila. 



Another pelagic Squid, named Lotigopsis* by Lamarck, has a very elongated tapering body, with 

 short arms, provided with two rows of cups. Its tentacles are very slender ; they are often mutilated or 

 wholly wanting. Its caudal fin is rhomboidal, and reminds one of the blade of a screw-propeller. Its 

 pen, which is slender, has a minute ccnical appendix to its extremity. Eight species of Loligopsis are 



* From Lo/iyo, and opsis, Gr., look. 



COMMON SQUI1). 



