SEPIAD^.—CUTTLE. 
165 
Cuttle-fislies are very common in tlie Mediterranean^ 
and are highly prized by the Neapolitans. The modern 
Greeks also make them^ and especially the Octopodia^ a 
principal article of food ; they dry them in great quan- 
tities^ and store them away for use to be boiled or fried. 
Several kinds of Cephalopoda are eaten abroad. The 
Octopus vulgaris is eaten when young and small at Nice^ 
where it is much more plentiful in the market than at 
Genoa; and if it weighs less than a pounds and is still 
tender^ it is much esteemed. Those who purchase it 
generally hammer it well with a stick before cooking it ; 
and it is also stated that the Greeks are careful to drag 
it for some time upon a stone, holding it by the opening 
in the body. The flesh is said to have a peculiar taste, 
consequently that of the cuttlefish and calamar [loligo) 
is preferred. At Naples, shellfish merchants of Sta. 
Lucia sell them ready cooked.* 
These Octopods^ called Octopodia by the modern 
Greeks, are regularly exposed for sale in the markets of 
Smyrna; as they are in the bazaars of India; and the 
North American Indians are also partial to them, 
Plato, the comic writer, says 
“ Good-sized polypus in season 
Should be boiled, — to roast them’s treason, 
But if early, and not big, 
Roast them | boil’d ain’t worth a 
M. Verany gives the following description of it:-— 
^^The common [the polpo of the Italians] is 
scattered throughout the Mediterranean, and is found 
on the coast of the Atlantic at the Canaries. Ac- 
cording to facts collected by M. .D^Orbigny, it has 
* See notes, ‘ Life in Normandy,’ voL i. 
t Athenseus, Deipnosophists, vol. i. bk. i. c. 8, p. 8. 
