96 



THE CALAMARIES. 



Judging from those now inhabiting the Eastern 

 Mediterranean, the following appear to have 

 been the species which came under his notice. 



1st. — Sepia officinalis (ariTria). This cuttle-fish 

 (the rudimentary shell of which is popularly 

 known as cuttle-fish bone), is extremely abundant 

 in the iEgean, where it lives near shore. It 

 deposits its eggs usually at a depth of five or six 

 fathoms, fastening them by a curious bandlike 

 pedicle to sea-weeds and sponges. Aristotle de- 

 scribed it as the cunningest of mollusks, and gives 

 a good account of its habit of ejecting its ink. 



2nd. — The Calamary (revQos), of which Aris- 

 totle describes two kinds ; the greater Calamary 

 and (3rd) the lesser. These have been referred 

 by Professor Owen in his admirable essay on the 

 anatomy of the Cephalopoda,* to the Loligo vul- 

 garis and Loligo media of modern naturalists. 

 The habits of the species of Loligo were well 

 known to the ancients. Pliny (Book ix. 9,) 

 describes the Calamaries as darting through the 

 water like the pectunculi with the swiftness of an 

 arrow. Those who have observed the motions of 

 the Pecten, the shell-fish doubtless to which he 



* Todd's Cyclopaedia of Anatomy and Physiology, vol. i. p. 

 561. 



