Fig. 2. 



nished with hollow discs like cupping glasses, 1 and radiating from the 

 head, and being its crown, giving us indeed a type of fishy animal, 

 just such as one would think would belong to the visions of the 

 night, rather than to sober reality. 



During a recent visit to Folkestone in Kent, I had the opportunity 

 of seeing in a living state a member of this family, Loligo media 

 (fig. 2), and had the gratification, for a short period, of inspecting 

 its habits. In a rock pool near the limits of low 

 water mark, my attention was one day directed by 

 my son to what at first sight seemed to be a small 

 fish, almost transparent in texture, of about four 

 inches in length, and, possessed of a singular pro- 

 perty of darting backwards 2 in the pool, and of 

 changing the colour of its body. On attempting 

 to secure this creature, I found the usual fish's 

 head was wanting, and in place of this, a ring of 

 ten moving arms, from the base of which a pair of 

 gleaming eyes glared at me in a defiant manner not 

 the most reassuring. Unpleasant as were the eyes, 

 no terms significant of mother-of-pearl, or of the 

 rainbow, can describe the lovely varying metallic 

 lustre, which, whilst life remained, sparkled in 

 those orbits. On attempting to capture this strange 

 fish, another characteristic became observable, for 

 the small pool hitherto transparent and glittering 

 in the sun, suddenly and without warning became of a dingy tint, 

 caused evidently by the ejection of a dark coloured fluid from the 

 Cuttle, which, mixing immediately with the water, concealed it for 

 a few moments in a dusky cloud. This protection, 3 furnished by 



Loligo media (Com- 

 mon Squid), drawn 

 from the actual speci- 

 men. The Squids differ 

 from the Cuttles in 

 their internal bone be- 

 ing more transparent 

 and elongated. 



1 In certain genera of the Cephalopoda, as in the uncinated Calamary (Onycho- 

 teuthis), the interior of the " cupping glasses" contains a hook-like appendage adapted 

 for firmly holding the soft and slippery surfaces of fish ; a specimen can he seen in 

 the College of Surgeons. 



2 The Cuttles produce this retrograde movement, by rapidly ejecting streams of 

 water from a pipe situated at the hack of the head. 



3 Long ago noticed by Aristotle. Hist. Anim. Lib. ix. cap. 37. " But the most 

 crafty of the Mollia is the Cuttle-fish, which alone employs its ink or black liqour for 



"the sake of concealing itself, and not only when terrified." 



