10 THE SHELL-FISH OF THE COAST. 



various tunics and bodies which belong to the most 

 perfectly constituted eye. 



Should you have succeeded in catching or finding 

 a squid, then follow me in the examination of its 

 parts. Observe the ten arms (or more properly feet, 

 as it is by means of these that the animal walks or 

 creeps about, head downward), two longer (ten- 

 tacles) than the remaining eight, and the peculiar 

 cup-like bodies with which they are furnished at 

 their extremities. These so-called ' acetabula' are 

 in reality organs of adhesion, each one acting on 

 the vacuum process which is familiar to all boys 

 who have experimented in brick-lifting with the 

 leather ' sucker' and string. The animal can, there- 

 fore, not only entwine its arms about the object of 

 its special search, but can stick to it by means of its 

 sucking disks. Look between the arms, and at their 

 base you will observe the mouth ; gently separate 

 the mouth, and you will bring to light a pair of re- 

 markable jaws or beaks, almost exactly like those 

 of a parrot, only reversed, — i.e., the larger beak is 

 below, and the small one above. On one side of the 

 animal — which would be the rear, if the creature 

 were held head downward — ^you will observe in the 

 gill-cavity, which is enclosed in a lap of the body- 

 mantle, the peculiar tubular organ known to nat- 

 uralists as the 'funnel.' Through this funnel much 

 of the water that is contained in the gill-cavity, and 

 is used in the aeration of the blood, is periodically 

 passed out by the animal. The stream of ejected 

 water, reacting upon the surrounding medium, 

 causes a rebound in the animal, the extent of which 



