90 NATURAL HISTORY READER. 



tic umbrella without a handle, and a huge head, with fiery, 

 threatening eyes that protruded ominously, and a long, 

 curved beak, raised itself from the surface. While they 

 stood paralyzed with fear, the monster flung at them a 

 tentacle of livid, corpse-like hue, thirty feet long, which 

 went far beyond the boat, or they would have been en- 

 gulfed. 



11. One of the fishermen seized a sharp hatchet, and, 

 by a well-directed blow, severed this terrible lasso before 

 another could be used, on which the savage apparition of 

 the sea swiftly darted backward, and was lost to sight 

 amid the ink-like discharge with which it blackened the 

 waters. The tentacle was given to Mr. Harvey, and the 

 fishermen avowed that there must have been at least ten 

 feet more of it next the body of their assailant. The col- 

 ored discharge would indicate that this monster was a kind 

 of cuttle-fish rather than an octopus. 



12. These terrible animals draw their prey to their for- 

 midable mouths and swallow it whole, where it is slowly 

 digested as in the case of the boa. The soft elastic mate- 

 rial of their body admits of an almost indefinite amount of 

 extension, so that prey of almost any size is easily disposed 

 of. Nature here, as elsewhere, however, has its compen- 

 sations. All the cuttle-fish are the favorite food of the 

 whale, the dolphin, and the porpoise. Michelet says : 

 "These lords of the ocean are so delicate in their taste 

 that they eat only the heads and arms, which are easy of 

 digestion. The coasts are frequently covered with thou- 

 sands of the mutilated cuttle-fish. The porpoises take 

 most incredible bounds, at first, to frighten them, and 

 afterward to run them down. After making a meal, they 

 seem to express their satisfaction by a series of gymnas- 

 tics." 



