194 
REVIEWS. 
their former abode; doubtless, if they did so, they saw much to admire, but 
they knew but little of what has been lately discovered; and still, with alb 
we are ready to exclaim with the poet— 
“ Oh, sea ! old sea 1 who yet knows half 
Of thy wonders and thy pride ?” 
And yet, if our knowledge increases as it has done, wonders of the sea 
will be wonders no longer, but plain to all beholders. We will be able to 
study the structure, economy, and functions of many an animal, which, 
until lately, we had no means of doing so; and that this is already the case, 
the following extract will show. We give it almost entire, as it is one of 
those minute but graphic descriptions, only to be attained by the careful 
watchings of some one animal:— 
u My notions of the Cephalopoda, derived from figures of the various species in 
books, were anything but agreeable. I thought of them as hideous, repulsive, 
fierce, atrocious creatures, hated and feared whenever seen. But an acquaintance 
with the pretty Sepiola vulgaris has not a little modified these ideas ; and 
its beauty, sprightliness, and curious habits have made it quite a favourite pet 
among the denizens of the Aquarium. It is a little creature, rarely exceeding an 
inch in length, though the extensibility of the arms somewhat varies its dimensions. 
When we turn out two or three from the net into a pail of sea water, they are, at 
first, restless and active; they shoot hither and thither, as if by a direct effort of 
will, but in reality by the impulse of rapid and forcible jets of water, directed 
towards various points from the mouth of the flexible funnel, situated beneath the 
body. After a few moments they suspend themselves in mid-water, hovering for 
many seconds in the same spot, scarcely moving a hair’s breath either way, but 
waving their large, circular swimming-fins rapidly and regularly up and down, just 
like the wings of an insect. Indeed, the resemblance of the little Cephalopod, in 
these circumstances, to a brown moth hovering over a flower, is most close and 
striking, and cannot fail to suggest an interesting comparison. The body is held 
in a horizontal position; the large, protuberant eyes gazing on either side ; and the 
arms grouped together, into a thick bundle, hang freely downwards. If you essay 
to count these organs, you find only eight; and even if you are aware that one of 
the characters of the genus is to have ten—of which two are much longer than the 
rest—you may search for these latter a long time in vain—of course, I mean 
during the life and health of the animal, when its impatience of being handled pre¬ 
sents obstacles to a very accurate investigation—you may then turn it over and 
over with a stick, and look at the bundle of the arms from above and below in 
turn—now grouped together, and now thrown all abroad in anger at being teased— 
still you can make out but eight. It was not until after many trials that I, at 
length, caught a peep at the missing organs—the pair of long arms—and discovered 
that it is the animal’s habit to carry them closely coiled up into little balls, and 
packed down upon the mouth at the bottom of the oral cavity. If we manage to 
insert the point of a pin in the coil, and stretch out the spiral filament, the little 
creature immediately snatches it away, and, in a twinkling, rolls it up again. A 
zealous votary of the circular system would seize on this analogy, with the spirally- 
folded tongue of a moth, and triumphantly adduce it as additional proof that the 
Cephalopoda represent, in the Molluscan circle, the Lepidoptera among insects. 
“ While thus hovering motionless in the water, the Sepiola presents a fair oppor¬ 
tunity for observing its curious transitions of colour, which are great and sudden. 
We can scarcely assign any hue proper to it. Now it is nearly white, or pellucid, 
with a faint band of brown specks along the back, through which the internal 
vicera glisten like silver; in an instant, the specks become spots, that come and 
go, and change their dimensions and their forms, and appear and disappear mo¬ 
mentarily—the whole body, arms, fins, and all—the parts, which before appeared 
