6 



nature and available for escape in the open sea, was of course value- 

 less in a rock pool ; of necessity only a brief interval sufficed to 

 make the ten-armed Loligo a captive of its two-footed spectators. 



Preserved in spirits, all the beauty of the Cephalopod faded out of 

 view, the transparent body gradually was converted into an opaque 

 and dirty white substance marked with light red spots ; the rain- 

 bow-looking eyes, previously so bright, ceased to attract attention, 

 and all that before had seemed ideal, became clothed in the garb of 

 poor mortality. The general form, however, was retained, perhaps 

 in a better condition for study and inspection. The cause of back- 

 ward progression, the method of obtaining food, the nature of the 

 tentacles, and the cup-like appendages, all these were set forth in a 

 manner clearer than had been the case whilst there had been life 

 and activity. 



Writers on Natural History tell us the Cuttle-fish tribe is very 

 highly organised, and approaches in structure, though not in shape, 

 to the Vertebrate or back-bone animals. The Cephalopoda have a 

 brain, very efficient eyes, (sometimes furnished with eyelids), a well- 

 planned ear, strong power of taste, most excellent parrot-like beaks 1 for 

 cutting up their food, and means not to be despised for pursuing their 

 prey and overcoming their foes. 



Formidable indeed, if travellers are to be believed, must be some 

 of the tribe which inhabit the southern seas. In those waters, it is 

 related, certain Cuttles have arms fifty feet in length, giving a dia- 

 meter of 100 feet to the circle at the mercy of the creature. Arms 

 very terrible, in that they occassionally clasp a passing canoe in a 

 horrible embrace, and drag down to the bottom both boat and 

 boatmen. 2 



Taking, however, such accounts for what they are worth, I would 

 rather turn to a statement which sounds more probable, and so I 

 will refer to the narrative of a naturalist, bearing upon the case of an 

 Octopus or eight-armed Cephalopod, and the more readily because 

 the desertion places the creature very graphically before our view. 



1 The Rhynckolite, a fossil found in the Cretaceous and Jurassic rocks, is supposed to 

 have been the biting jawof a pre-historic Nautilus : for figure see D'Orbigny, Paleon- 

 tologie Franchise, Terrains Jurassiques, Vol. I., Plate 39. 



3 Pennant, British Zoology, vol. iv., p. 45. 



