CEPHALOPODS. 
469 
elders. Oppian, who endowed the argonaut with wings, believed that 
calmar also could take to the air, in order to avoid his enemies, 
■nevertheless, he was much puzzled how to give the form and 
^notions of a bird to a fish. Themistocles, by way of insult to the 
I’-retrians, likened them to calmars, saying they had swords and no 
hearts. Athenseus, a Greek physician before Galen, dwelt upon the 
Nourishing properties of the flesh of tho calmar. 
Common enough in temperate regions, the calmars abound in the 
s «as of the Torrid zone ; they are gregarious, and live in numerous 
shoals, their bands taking every year the same direction, their emi- 
gration proceeding from temperate to warm regions— nearly the same 
c °urse as that followed by the herrings and pilchards. 
Fig. 327. Loligo vulgaris, with its 
feather, or internal hone (Lamarck). 
Fig. 328. Loligo Gahi 
(D’Orhigny). 
a calmars, like the cuttles, propel themselves backwards through 
6 "water with great velocity, driving back the water by means of 
5e h locomotive tube, moving with such vigour and promptitude that 
Ney have been known to throw themselves out of the water, falling 
| >U the shore or on the deck of a vessel. They only appear momen- 
ar % on the shore, and only sojourn there to deposit their eggs, 
' hek are gelatinous in substance, about the level of the lowest tides. 
. he body in the calmars is longer than in the cuttle-fish, cylindrical 
11 shape, and terminating in a point, having two lateral fins, which 
° ecil Py the lower half or third of its body. 
Li the common calmar, Loligo vulgaris (Fig. 327), and the Loligo 
