92 RELATIONS WITH OTHER ANIMALS. 



far as the eye of the lookout could roach. Mr. Vrolik found in 

 the stomach of a Hyperoodou about ton thousand mandibles of 

 Loligo.* 



The cephalopoda are essentially carnivorous; their nourish- 

 ment is derived from fish, the migrations of which they follow, 

 and from Pteropod mollusca. Certain sedentary species cat 

 crustaceans. nudibranehiate mollnsks and bryozoa. A CUM- their 

 exclusion, the young prey upon polyps, notably on those of the 

 family (Jorgonida?, so common on the Algorinc const, and of 

 which. SOUK' perhaps furnish the material necessary for the growth 

 or solidification of the cuttle-bone. A little larger. thoyatiaok 

 with avidity those elegant ehaplots of pearls, the rainbow-huod 

 t'o-o-s of Eolis and Doris. f 



The chief article of food of the sperm whale is squid, of which 

 they vomit large quantities in their death agony. Oapt. Pease 

 thinks that the whales take them by swimming with the mouth 

 so wide open that the lower jaw stands at nearly right angles 

 with the upper. Squid, he thinks, will grasp at the jaw as the 

 whale passes among them, and a re cut in fragments by the sudden 

 closure of the jaws. He stoutly maintains that he has seen frag- 

 ments of squid, where the whales had cut them in two. exposing 

 the cavity of the body, which was as largo over as the head of 

 a forty-gallon cask. In one case he saw the head of a squid 

 which he believes to have bee]) as largo as a sugar hogshoad.J 



It is the opinion of almost all whalemen, thai i ho sperm whale 

 feeds wholly on squid, ('apt. Haniel McKon/ie. of New Bedford, 

 says: "The smaller kind they eat is found near the surface, and 

 is from 2 to 3 feet in length; the larger kind, which prob- 

 ably have their haunts deep in the sea. must be of immense size. 

 I have seen very large junks floating on the surface en !i rely 

 shapeless." Cap:. Francis Post says: "Whales in the agony of 

 death, frequently eject from their stomach pieces as large as the 

 bulk of a ban-el, and these in largo quant iiios. Largo pieces of 



*ll:irt'm.n-. in " Verh. K. Akad. Weten.," Amsterdam, i\, 12, lsf,l. 

 Tivbius Ni^'tM- speaks of squids darting into the air in sn<-h numbers ;is to 

 sink the ships upon which they full, by I heir weight. 



{ Anoapitiiine, /,'/>/. rt May. tool, 2S, isr,2. 

 | Shalor, Am. Naturalist, vii, :5, 1S7M. 



