26 
BULLETIN OF THE NATURAL HIGTORY SOCIETY. 
living or recently dead, by means of the continual contraction and 
dilation of the chromatophores. The different tints pass over the 
surface like blushes.” 
The Squid, so well named Sea-arrow, is extremely swift and grace- 
ful in its movements. It swims by the forcible ejection of water from 
its siphon, the reaction driving the animal backward with great velocity. 
The arms pressed close together, trail out behind, and the fin, used to 
balance or steady the body when the animal is moving slowly, is wound 
tightly around it when it goes swiftly. But the siphon can be pointed 
backward and the animal go forward, when necessary, though it does 
so much less easily than it can go backward. It lives upon young 
herring or mackerel, following the schools in to the coast. It takes 
these fish by darting in among them, turning suddenly to one side, and 
seizing one which it kills by a bite in the back of the neck. Squid 
move in schools, and are most active at night. They often come ashore 
in large numbers, on account, no doubt of their running backwards. 
When much alarmed they discharge with the water from the siphon an 
inky fluid which blackens the water around. It is eaten by many fishes. 
Nothing is as yet known of its breeding habits. Professor Verrill, 
Arguing from the structure of the reproductive parts, believes it will be 
found that the eggs are cast free into the ocean, and float singly or in 
masses on the surface. 
Economics. Fifteen or twenty years ago the Squid would 
hardly have found a place in a paper of this character. Its 
great, almost its only, use is as a bait for cod and other large 
fish, and it is only of late years that it has come to be so ex- 
tensively used. In Newfoundland, especially, it is taken in 
•enormous quantities, both for the use of the native fishermen 
and for sale to those of the United States. It is the chief 
reliance of the latter for their fishing on the Grand Banks; 
for though they bring salted clams or other bait, Squid are 
always preferred. They are mostly caught by native fisher- 
men, who sell them for from twenty-five to forty-five cents 
per hundred. The French have vessels specially devoted to 
taking and delivering it. There are no statistics to show the 
•extent to which it is used; but one writer states that the 
number annually used by United States vessels alone would 
be reckoned high in the tens of millions.” Mr. Ingersoll 
estimates that five hundred vessels and boats are annually 
engaged in taking Squid for bait. In the United States it is 
.at present rarely or not at all taken for this purpose. 
