44 Proceedings, of the Boyal Physical Society. 



relaxing their hold on being forcibly pulled, they came away 

 adhering to the point of the cane. On placing the animal in 

 a pool of water, it discharged the contents of its inkbag, and I 

 left it completely obscured. 



" About half-a-mile farther west, I encountered a much 

 larger specimen, measuring 2 feet 4 inches in length, also cast 

 up by the receding tide. It, too, was alive, but in a dying state, 

 and in colour it was precisely the same as the smaller specimen. 



" On referring to Fleming's ' British Animals,' I find that 

 he speaks of this species as being rare. I have never myself 

 seen it but on one occasion — a specimen much smaller than 

 the least of the two whose occurrence I now record — having 

 been cast on shore, three or four years ago, in the Kyles of 

 Bute, on the west coast. 



" A characteristic figure of this animal, under the name of 

 Octopodia media, is given in Pennant's ' British Zoology,' 

 edition 1812, and it may not be out of place to quote here 

 the following short description which that author gives : 



"'.... long, slender cylindric body ; tail finned, 

 pointed, and carinated on each side ; two long tentacula ; the 

 body almost transparent ; green, but convertible into a dirty 

 brown, confirming the remark of Pliny that they change 

 their colour through fear, adapting it, chameleon like, to that 

 of the place they are in. The eyes are large and smaragdine.' 



" Dr Fleming's later description is as follows : ' L. media. — 

 Body long, fins elliptical, tail pointed. . . . Pare. . . . 

 Body slender, almost transparent, cylindrical; arms with a 

 double row of suckers. Eyes large, blue.' No dimensions 

 are given by either of these writers. The discrepancy in 

 describing the colour of the eyes may be accounted for by 

 assuming that after death the emerald green changes to blue j 

 indeed in the two specimens found by myself I observed that 

 after an hour's interval the eyes had acquired a dark bluish 

 green tint, which is probably more noticeable and of a deeper 

 hue in preserved specimens. 



" Compared with the common calamary (Z. vulgaris), this 

 species has a longer and more strictly cylindrical body, and a 

 more pointed tail, the fins attached to which are elliptical in 

 place of being rhomboidal in shape." 



