Proceedi2\'GS of the Polytechnic Association. 911 



liaving a very large head, a pair of large eyes, and a month fm-nished 

 with a pair of jaws, aronnd which are arranged, in a circle, eight or 

 ten arms furnished with suckers. In the common cuttle-fish or squid 

 of our coast, the body, which is long and narrow, is wrapped in a 

 muscular cloak or mantle, like a bag, fitting tightly to the back, but 

 loose in front. It is closed up to the neck, where it is open like a 

 loosely-fitting overcoat buttoned up to the throat. Attached to its 

 throat, by the middle, is a short tube, open at both ends. This tube 

 or syphon can be moved about in any^direction. The animal breathes 

 by means of gills, which are attached to the front of the body, inside 

 the cloak, and look like the rufiles of a shirt-bosom. By means of these 

 gills the air contained in the water is breathed, and they answer the 

 same purpose for the cuttle-fish that our lungs do for us. In order 

 to swim, the animal swells out the cloak in front, so that the water 

 flows in between it and the bod3^ Then it closes the cloak tightly 

 about the neck, so that the only way the water can get out is through 

 the syphon. Then it contracts forcibly its coat, and the water is 

 driven out in a jet from the syphon, and the body is propelled in an 

 opposite direction like a rocket through the water. This syphon is 

 flexible, like a water hose, and can be bent so as to direct the stream 

 not only forward, but sideways, and backward, so that the animal can 

 move in almost any direction, and turn summersaults with perfect 

 ease ; and so rapidly do some cuttle-fishes swim, that they are aUe 

 to make long leaps out of the water. Usually, however, the animal 

 swims backward, with its long arms trailing behind. Our common 

 cuttle-fish of this coast has, in addition to its eight arras, two long 

 slender tenacles, which may be withdrawn into the body. The tail 

 is pointed and furnished with a fin on each side. The octapods 

 to which the Brazilian cuttle-fish belongs, have round purse-like 

 bodies, and eight arms united at the base with a web, and they 

 swim by opening and shutting their arms like an umbrella ; in 

 this mode of swimming they resemble the jelly-fishes. The paper 

 nautilus is nothing in the world but a female cuttle-fish that 

 builds a shell. There was a very pretty story told of hei- habits 

 by Aristotle, the old Greek naturalist, which everybody believed 

 until quite lately. He said she rode on the top of the waves, seated 

 in her boat-like shell, and si)reading her broad arms to the winds for 

 sails. But, unfortunately, the story has no foundation in fact. She# 

 either crawls about on the bottom of the sea, or swims quite like 

 other cuttle-fish, shell foremost, only occasionally coming to the sur- 



