396 THE WORLD OF ANIMAL LIFE 



tacles are called the Octopods, and those with ten tentacles the 

 Decapods. When there are ten tentacles, two are usually much 

 longer than the other eight, and are used for anchoring to stones 

 or other objects. 



If we have seen an Octopus, living or dead, we know what a 

 Cuttle-fish is. It is, though unprotected externally, one of the 

 most formidable creatures to be met with. It possesses two staring 

 eyes, and its eight arms are always ready to coil around any object 

 which it may desire to attack. As each arm is furnished with 

 long arrays of cup-like discs that attach themselves to anything at 

 the will of their owner, and as the animal itself is furnished with a 

 hard parrot-like beak, it is more wonderfully endowed with terrible 

 attacking forces than any monster of fable. And what is charac- 

 teristic of the common Octopus is equally applicable to the group 

 generally. The Sepia, the Loligo, the Argonaut, the Nautilus, all 

 are armed in the same way. Let us consider the Octopus further 

 as an illustration of the whole group. 



The discs upon the long tentacles of the cuttle-fish are formed 

 upon the principle of a " sucker ". Each is a circular, fleshy 

 cup, in the centre of which is a small piston formed of muscular 

 substance, which can be withdrawn at the will of the animal. 

 Thus, when several of these suckers are placed against a rock 

 or a stone, and the muscular pistons withdrawn, a "vacuum", i.e. 

 a chamber that is perfectly empty, is formed, and the discs adhere 

 so strongly to their hold that the tentacle cannot be torn away. 



The power of these suckers is extremely great. A few years 

 ago a diver, when attempting to lift a submerged stone, was seized 

 by two of the tentacles of a huge cuttle-fish which had been 

 lurking beneath it. Thinking that he could easily disengage the 

 suckers, he tried to tear the tentacles away, but found that it was 

 quite impossible to do so. Had he not snatched up an iron bar 

 which was fortunately lying close by, and probed its body into 

 a shapeless mass, he would undoubtedly have fallen a victim to his 

 strange antagonist. 



" No fate ", says a well-known writer, " could be more horrible 

 than to be entwined in the embrace of those eight clammy, corpse- 

 like arms, and to feel their folds creeping and gliding around you, 



