230 SHELLS AND MOLLUSCOUS ANIMALS. 



sea, feeding even upon the largest crustacean 

 animals, which have no chance in a contest with 

 them ; and the fishermen of the Mediterranean 

 dislike them so much, that they regard them almost 

 as the evil spirits of the waters. In the summer 

 season, few of these .animals can be drawn up from 

 the ocean without showing, by their mutilated 

 condition, the enemies with which they have con- 

 tended. The early naturalists believed that the 

 cuttle-fishes entrapped their prey, in some measure, 

 by stratagem ; and a writer in London's Magazine 

 of Natural History quotes Holland's Pliny on this 

 old notion. Of the cuttle, he says, " And albeit, 

 otherwise, it be a very brutal and senseless crea- 

 ture so foolish withal, that it will swim and come 

 into a man's hand yet it seems after a sort to be 

 witty and wise, keeping of house and maintaining 

 a familie ; for all that they can take, they carry 

 home to their nest. When they have eaten the 

 meat of the fishes, they throw the empty shells 

 out of dores, and lie, as it were, in ambuscade 

 behind them, to watch and catch fishes that 

 swimme thither." Pliny also adds, that the 

 Cephalopoda are " most desirous and greedie of 

 cockles, muscles, and such-like shell-fish, and in 

 order to get them they lie in wait to spie when 

 the said cockles gape wide open, and put in a little 

 stone between the shells ; but yet beside the flesh 

 and bodie of the fish, for feare lest if it touched and 

 felt it, she would cast it forth again. Thus they 

 thieve, and without all danger, and in securitie, 

 get out the fleshie substance of the meat, to devour 

 it. The poor cockles draw their shels together 

 for to clasp them better (as is above said), but all 

 in vaine, for by reason of a wedge between, they 

 will not meet nor come neere together. See how 



