BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY AT NAPLES 



by nothing but the coat of the zebra. The cuttle-fish 

 is a sluggish creature, seeking out the darker corners 

 of his grotto, and often lying motionless for long peri- 

 ods together. But not so the little squid. He does 

 not thrive in captivity, and incessantly wings his way 

 back and forth, with slow, wavy flappings of his filmy 

 appendages, until he wears himself out and dies un- 

 reconciled. 



In marked contrast with both cuttle-fish and squid 

 is their cousin the octopus a creepy, crawly creature, 

 like eight serpents in one at once the oddest and the 

 most fascinating creature in the entire aquarium. You 

 will find a crowd almost always before his grotto 

 watching his curious antics. Usually slow and delib- 

 erate in movement, he yet has capacity for a certain 

 agility. Now and again he dives off suddenly, head 

 first, through the water, with the directness if not 

 quite with the speed of an arrow. A moment later, 

 tired of his flight, he sprawls his eight webbed legs out 

 in every direction, breaking them seemingly into a 

 thousand joints, and settles back like an animated 

 parachute awreck. Then perchance he perches on a 

 rock knowingly, with the appearance of owl-like wis- 

 dom, albeit his head looks surprisingly like a frog's. 

 Anon he holds his head erect and stretches out 

 his long arms in what is most palpably a yawn. 

 Then, for pure diversion, he may hold himself half 

 erect on his umbrella frame of legs and sidle along 

 a sort of quadrille a veritable " eight hands in 

 round." 



But all the while he conveys distinctly the impression 

 of a creature to the last degree blase. Even when a 



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