HABITS OF THE CEPHALOPODS. 277 



the islands of the Indian Archipelago, Mr. Adams frequently 

 observed the Sepise and Octopi in full predatory activity, and 

 had considerable difficulty and trouble in securing them, so 

 great was their restless vivacity, and so vigorous their endeavours 

 to escape. " They dart from side to side of the pools," says the 

 naturalist in his entertaining and instructive account of his 

 journey to those distant gems of the tropical sea, " or fix them- 

 selves so tenaciously to the surface of the stones by means of 

 their suckers that it requires great force and strength to detach 

 them. Even when removed and thrown upon the sand, they 

 progress rapidly, in a sidelong shuffling manner, throwing about 

 their long arms, ejecting their ink-like fluid in sudden violent 

 jets, and staring about with their big shining eyes (which at 

 night appear luminous, like a cat's) in a very grotesque and 

 hideous manner." 



At the Cape de Verd islands, Mr. C. Darwin was also much 

 amused by the various arts to escape detection used by a 

 cuttle-fish, which seemed. fully aware that he was watching it. 

 Kemaining for a time motionless, it would then stealthily 

 advance an inch or two, like a cat after a mouse, and thus 

 proceeded, till, having gained a deeper part, it darted away,, 

 leaving a dusky train of ink, to hide the hole into which it had 

 crawled. 



All the cephalopods are extremely voracious; they destroy on 

 shallow banks the hopes of the fishermen, devour along the 

 coasts and on the high seas countless myriads of young fish and 

 naked molluscs, and kill, like the tiger, for the mere love of 

 carnage. Thus they would become dangerous to the equili- 

 brium of the seas if nature, to counterbalance their destructive 

 habits, had not provided a great number of enemies for the 

 thinning of their ranks. 



They form the almost exclusive food of the sperm-whales, 

 and the albatross and the petrels love to skim them from the 

 surface of the ocean. Tunnies and bonitos devour them in vast 

 numbers, the cod consumes whole shoals of squids, and man, as 

 I have already mentioned, catches many millions to serve him 

 as a bait for this valuable fish. 



At Teneriffe, in the Brazils, in Peru and Chili, in India and 

 China, various species of cephalopods are used as food. Along 

 the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, the common sepia 



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