CUTTLE-FISHES. 



225 



ratus than is here provided for their destruction. Beneath the staring eyes that indicate 

 the creature's head, are spread eight strong and fleshy arms, united at their bases by a 

 broad muscular expansion,' and furnished upon their under surface with a hundred and 

 twenty pairs of powerful and tenacious suckers, each of which might be compared to an 

 air-pump in its efficiency and mode 06 action. No sooner does the cuttle-fish, by throw- 

 ing out its long flexible arms, bring but a few of its two thousand suckers in contact 

 with the surface of its victim, than they adhere with unrelenting pertinacity, and the 

 arms are swiftly twined around the struggling prey, which vainly strives to disengage 

 itself from so fearful and so fatal an embrace. Their quickness of sight, and the facility 

 with which they detach their suckers, is wonderful. Mr. Broderip attempted with a 

 hand-net to catch an Octopus floating by, with its long flexible arms entwined round a 



AND SQUID. 



fish that it was tearing with its sharp bill. It allowed the net to approach -.vithin a short 

 distance before relinquishing its prey, when in an instant it relaxed its thousand suckers, 

 exploded its inky ammunition, and rapidly retreated under cover of the cloud thus 

 occasioned, by rapid and vigorous strokes of its circular web. These cuttle-fishes also 

 escape detection by a very extraordinary chameleon-like power of changing colour. 

 They appear to vary their tints according to the nature of the ground over which they 

 pa>s. \\~hen in deep water, their general shade is brownish purple ; but when placed 

 on land or in shallow water, this dark tint changes to one of yellowish green. The 

 colour, examined more generally, is a French grey, with numerous minute spots of 

 bright yellow. The former of these varies in intensity, the latter entirely disappears 

 and appears again by turns. These changes are effected in such a manner, that colours, 

 varying in tint between a hyacinth-red and a chestnut-brown, are continually passing 

 over the body. 



13 



