CEPHALOPODES. 
339 
with numerous organs for seizing their prey, they destroy many Fishes and Crusta- 
ceous animals. 
Their flesh is eatable. Their inky secretion is employed in painting, and from it 
some have asserted that the China ink of commerce is manufactured.* * * § 
The Cephalopods comprise only one order f, which we divide into genera from the nature of 
the shell. Those which have no external shell formed, according to Linnseus, the single genus 
Sepia, or Cuttle-fish, J 
which we now subdivide as follows : — 
The Poulpes {Octopus, Lam.) ; the Pohjpus of the ancients. 
These have only two small conical grains of a horny substance imbedded in their back, one on each 
side ; and their sac, having no fins, represents an oval purse. Their feet are eight in number, all nearly 
of equal size, very large in proportion to the body, and united together at their insertions by a mem- 
brane. The Octopus uses them equally in swimming, in creeping, and in seizing its prey. From their 
length and strength they are formidable weapons, by means of which the prey is entangled and 
caught ; and they have often been the destruction of swimmers. § The eyes are proportionally small, 
and the skin can be made at will to contract over them so as to cover them completely. The ink bag 
is embedded in the liver. The glands of the oviducts are small. 
Some (the Polypes of Aristotle) have their suckers in two alternating rows along [the oral margin] of each foot. 
The common species {Sepia octopodia, Linn.), with a minutely granulous skin, arms six times as long as the 
body, and garnished with 120 pairs of suckers, infests our coasts in summer, where it destroys an immense 
quantity of Crustacea. The seas of the tropics produce the Octopus granulatus, Lam. {Sepia rugosa, Bose.) 
Seb. iii. ii. 2, 3, known by its more decidedly granulated body, its arms only a little longer than itself, garnished 
with fifty pairs of suckers. Some believe this to be the species which furnishes the China ink of commerce. 
Other Poulpes (the Eledons of Aristotle) have only a single row of suckers down each foot. In the Mediteri'anean 
there is a species remarkable for its musky smell : it is the Octopus moschatus, Lam. — Mem. de la Soc. d'Hist. 
Nat. in 4to, pi. 11 ; Rondelet, 516. 
The Argonauts {Argonauia, Linn.)— 
Are Poulpes with two rows of suckers : the pair of feet nearest the back expand, at their extremities, 
into a broad membrane. They have not the dorsal cartilaginous spicula of the common Octopus ; but 
we always find these Cuttles in a very thin, 
regularly-grooved spiral shell, which, from the 
disproportionate size of the last whorl, has 
some resemblance to a canoe, the spire repre- 
senting the poop. The animal uses it too as a 
boat, for when the sea is calm, groups of them 
have been seen navigating the surface in it, 
employing six of their tentacula for oars, and 
raising, it is said, the two with expanded ex- 
tremities to serve the purposes of sails. If the 
waves rise, or any danger threatens, the Argo- 
naut withdraws all its arms into the shell, con- 
tracts itself there, and descends to the bottom. 
Its body does not penetrate within the spire of 
the shell, and it appears does not adhere to it, 
at least there is no muscular attachment, and this fact has led some authors to think that the Cuttle is 
a parasite of the same nature as the Hermit-crab H ; but as it is always found in the same shell, as we 
never find any other animal there, although it is very common, and naturally adapted for rising to the 
* However, M. Al. Remusat has found nothin? in Chinese authors 
to confirm this opinion, [which, the translator may add, is now known 
to be erroneousl. 
t The discoveries of Mr. Owen have proved the necessity of dividing- 
the class into two orders: — 1. Dibrancbiata, with two branchiae, of 
which all the naked Cuttle-fish are examples ; and, 2. Tetrabranchi- 
ATA, with four branchiae, as in Nautilus, and as supposed to have been 
in the multilocular-shelled fossil Cephalopodes.. — Ed. 
t In Blainville’s system they form the order CryptodibrancMata. 
§ This fact needs confirmation ; and we need scarcely add, that the 
stories of their sinking boats and ships are entirely fabulous. — Ed. 
II Hence M. Rafinesque, and others following him, have made the 
animal a genus under the name Ocijthoe. [Certainly the opinion of its 
being a parasite was, until recently, entertained by most naturalists ; 
but that advocated by Cuvier has been greatly strengthened, or rather 
proved, by the experiments of Mrs. Power. See the Mag. of Natural 
History, conducted by Mr. Charlesworth ; and the dissections and 
arguments of Mr. Owen, in the Proceedhtgs and Transactions of the 
Zoological Society of London. The animal does not sail as here de- 
scribed : the use of the expanded arms is to retain the animal within 
its shell.] 
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