418 
pliny's natural history. 
[Book IX. 
it shifts from side to side, sometimes canying it on the right, 
and sometimes on the left. It swims obliquely,^^ with the 
head on one side, which is of surprising hardness while the 
animal is alive, being puffed out with air.^^ In addition to 
this, they have cavities •'^'^ dispersed throughout the claws, 
by means of which, through suction, they can adhere to 
objects ; which they hold, with the head upwards, so tightly, 
that they cannot be torn away. They cannot attach them- 
selves, however, to the bottom of the sea, and their reten- 
tive powers are weaker in the larger ones. These are the 
only^^ soft fish that come on dry land, and then only where 
the surface is rugged : a smooth surface they will not come 
near. They feed upon the flesh of shell-fish, the shells of 
which they can easily break in the embrace of their arms : 
hence it is that their retreat may be easily detected by the pieces 
of shell which lie before it. Although, in other respects, this 
is looked upon as a remarkably stupid kind of animal, so much 
so, that it will swim towards the hand of a man, to a certain 
extent in its own domestic matters it manifests considerable 
intelligence. It carries its prey to its home, and after eating 
all the flesh, throws out the debris, and then pursues such 
small fish as may chance to swim towards them. It also 
changes its colour^"* according to the aspect of the place where 
it is, and more especially when it is alarmed. The notion is 
entirely unfounded that it gnaws^^ its own arms ; for it is from 
the congers that this mischance befalls it ; biit it is no other 
fringed with the so-called feet, cannot be said to be distinguished into an 
upper and lower side. 
'^^ Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. iv. c. 2, says that the animal is obliged to 
do so, on account of the situation of the eyes. 
31 But Aristotle says, KaQdiztp tjiTre^virrjiJLsvTjp^ '''•as though it were 
puffed out with air." 
32 Acetabulis." The acetabulum was properly a vinegar cruet, in 
shape resembling an inverted cone ; from a supposed similarity in the 
appearance, it is here applied to the suckers of the polypus. The Greek 
name is fcoruXj^^wi/. 
33 Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. ix. c. 59. 
3* Cuvier says, that the changes of colour of the skin of the polypus 
are continual, and succeed each other with an extreme rapidity ; but that 
it has not been observed, any more than the chameleon, to take the colour 
of objects in its vicinity. 
35 This notion is mentioned by Athenaeus, Pherecrates, Alcaeus, Hesiod, 
Oppian, and ^lian. 
i 
