30 
THE LIVING WORLD. 
assertions of hundreds of responsible persons, as well also to deny the evidences 
which are contained in several museums, where specimens of this huge crea- 
tnre are preserved. A calamar was caught some years ago near Nice, which 
weighed upwards of thirty pounds. Less than forty years ago an individual of 
the same genus was caught in the same place that measured six feet in length, 
and its body is now preserved in the Museum of Natural History at Mont¬ 
pelier. Peron, the distinguished naturalist, asserts that he met with one off 
the coast of Australia that was nearly eight feet long. Two travellers, Quoy and 
Gaimard, picked up the skeleton of a cuttle-fish in the Atlantic Ocean, near the 
equator, which, when living, must have weighed at least two hundred pounds. 
M. Rung found in the Atlantic the body of another, which he describes as 
being as large as a tun cask. In this instance the tentacles were quite short, 
and the body of a reddish color. He secured one of its mandibles, which is 
still preserved in the Museum of the College of Surgeons in Paris, and is the 
size of a man’s hand. 
In 1853 a gigantic cephalopod was cast ashore on the coast of Jutland, 
where it perished. Some fishermen dismembered the body and bore it away in 
several wheelbarrow loads. The back part of the mouth of this animal is said 
to have been as large as the head of an infant. Another, equally great, was 
taken in the Atlantic in 1858, while it was engaged in a deadly combat with 
a whale, and parts of it may be seen in the museum at Copenhagen. 
Few inhabitants of the deep with which we are now familiar, however, 
have furnished such opportunity for thrilling description as Octopus vulgaris 
(Octopus or Cuttle-fisli). Its skeleton is confined to two dorsal, cone-shaped, horny 
substances. The body is round, soft and jelly-like, and has a leathery integu¬ 
ment or covering. The arms are of extraordinary length, frequentlj 7 being four 
or five times the length of the body. They are studded with sucking discs 
(frequently as many as several thousand), are reproduced if lost, and are 
■capable of an embrace which is very difficult to resist. The mouth consists 
of an orifice surrounded by a circular lip, beneath which appears a beak whose 
longest part lies below; the mouth and jaws are supplied with powerful 
muscles, so that the octopus can easily crush the shells of crustaceans and 
mollusks, and carve the bodies of fishes ; the tongue is adapted alike for tasting 
and for conducting food to the digestive apparatus; the mouth lies so as to be 
surrounded by the arms, which seize its food. On one side of the abdomen 
are two siphons used for ejecting the inky liquid which it employs to conceal 
itself from its enemies. They are used also for propelling the octopus by 
sucking and ejecting streams of water. It was formerly supposed that the sepia, 
or India ink, so much used by artists, was made from the ink of the cuttle^ 
fish, instead, as happens to be the fact, from lamp-black and glue. The animal 
has large, shining eyes, placed at the base of the arms ; it is keen-sighted, and. 
so to speak, far-sighted; finally, it is phosphorescent and one of the creators of 
that mysterious and interesting light on the waters which is so ordinary and 
so attractive a phenomenon at sea. 
The octopus is found in every quarter of the globe, attaining its largest 
size, and exhibiting its greatest ferocity, however, in southern or tropical 
regions. The largest specimens weigh from a hundred pounds upward, and 
their muscular development is proportioned to their weight. They have been 
known to attack boats and the sailors in them, and have given rise to many an ex- 
