SOME NEW AND RARE CEPHALOPODA. Ill 



ventricle is lozenge- shaped, and elongated in the direction of the axis of the body, but 

 the two lateral angles which receive the branchial veins are not on the same plane, the 

 right being most anterior. The digestive organs presented no deviation worthy of 

 notice ; the anus was provided with the two small aliform valves or appendages. 



The small species of Octopus^ which next comes under consideration, is, like the 

 small Loligo above described, an inhabitant of the Sargasso or Gulf- weed. Two spe- 

 cimens of this Cephalopod were taken on the 5th of April, and the third on the following 

 day, in latitude 30° 31' north, longitude 44° 7' west. Mr. Bennett mentions them as 

 " small Sepi(s" of a purplish colour. 



The Cephalopods of the genus Octopus are generally found near the coast, where they 

 seek their prey among the rocks, creeping on their eight legs with the body carried 

 above or behind the head ; they are less calculated for living in the open sea than the De- 

 capods, which are provided with an additional pair of fins. That singular oceanic phe- 

 nomenon, the Sargasso or Gulf-weed, serves however, in place of a shore, as a resting- 

 place to the small species now under consideration, and affords food and shelter to in- 

 numerable other curious Invertebrata : indeed an accurate fauna of this floating mass of 

 marine vegetables would be a most interesting addition to Zoology. 



The largest of the three specimens of Octopus collected by Mr. Bennett measured 

 from the extremity of the sac to the end of the longest arm exactly an inch and a half, 

 the length of the sac or body being barely half an inch. The first peculiarity which may 

 be noticed is in the position and attachment of the eyes, which, instead of being con- 

 tained in a capsule as in the common Poulp, project uncovered from the sides of the 

 head in the form of large dark-coloured spherical bodies : in this structure we are re- 

 minded of the Nautilus, in which the organs of vision not only project from the sides of 

 the head, but are supported on peduncles : the prominence of the eye-balls in the 

 Argonauta, and still more in the Octopus hyalinus, is an approximation to the struc- 

 ture just described in the present species. Those alone, who have witnessed the per- 

 severing activity, power, and velocity of motion exercised by the Octopus when en- 

 gaged in its destructive practices amongst a shoal of fishes, and who have seen it with 

 its beak buried deep in the flesh of a victim held fast in the irresistible embrace of its 

 numerous arms, in an instant simultaneously dissolve the attachment of its thousand 

 suckers, and, disengaging itself from its prey, dart like an arrow from the net that has 

 been cautiously moved towards it for its capture, can form an adequate idea of the 

 acuteness of visual perception and powers of action with which this singular and un- 

 shapely Cephalopod is endowed. 



In the present species the form of the body is ventricose, but sHghtly tapering to its ex- 

 tremity ; the mantle is connected by a broad continuation of the integument to the back 



1 PI. XXI. figg. 12, 13. 



VOL. II. PART II. Q 



