THE LIVING WORLD. 
33 
ceived. Small and deformed as it appears to be, the young squid is very 
active immediately after birth, whisking about through the water in a most 
reckless manner, as if to exercise his long, pent-up limbs, until his vigor is 
somewhat spent, when he gradually settles down towards the bottom. Here he 
stops, and, drawing his siphon apparatus, blows a hole in the sandy bottom, into 
which he quickly sinks out of sight, and there remains for a day or more 
before reappearing. 
There is a well-authenticated story of a sponge diver, who, upon reaching 
bottom in twenty-five feet of water, was suddenly alarmed by feeling something 
grasping him. It turned out to be an octopus , and it was not until after a 
fierce battle, during which the diver cut the body into mince-meat, that the arms, 
having no longer any support, ceased to embrace the intruder into submarine 
mysteries. But apart from the danger and the fright, the diver was confined 
to his bed for months from the effects of the wounds made by the octopus. 
The fossil remains of the cuttle-fish are numerous, and indicate the need 
for their activity when the waters were so filled with animal life. The Am¬ 
monites , the fossil ancestors of the cuttle-fish, vary in size, from the minutest 
particle to a diameter of two or three feet. They derived their name from a 
fancied resemblance between their horns and those to be found on the statue of 
Jupiter Ammon, the supreme deity of the Libyans. Unscientific persons still 
cherish the belief that these fossils are genuine petrifactions, and the number 
of legends has been multiplied by the superstition of persons who found in 
the Ammonite a judgment like unto that which was executed upon Lot’s wife. 
The Loligo Squids are very common, and are most brilliant in their color- 
ing, which they seem to be able to change at will, and with a rapidity which dis¬ 
credits Samuel Warren’s account (in “Ten Thousand a Year”) of Tittlebat Tit¬ 
mouse’s hair-dye. Red, blues of all shades, orange and brown are quite common 
colors. 
The Common Squid, or Pen-fish (. Loligo vulgaris ), is green, inclining 
to brown. Its eyes are bright emerald green; its fins are shaped like the 
lozenge of the geometer, and they reach from the tail to about the middle 
of the body. They are used in forward movements, while the mollusk, at 
pleasure, moves backward by contractions of its body. Its head and arms pro¬ 
trude from the body like the head of a turtle. The skeleton is a fac-simile of 
a quill pen, and hence the popular name of the creature. It lays upwards of 
forty thousand eggs, which are arranged upon the radii of a circle whose 
diameter is many inches. 
The Dotted Loligo (or Loligo punctata ) is quite common, and though 
swimming backwards (as it has no fins), is very agile. The species called the 
Sea-arrow is a favorite bait among those whose life is spent in the cod fish¬ 
eries. This species jumps from the water and seems to fly. It has been known 
to leap as high as the deck of a large ship. The Hooked Squid is so large and 
aggressive as to be dreaded by pearl fishers. 
The Common Garden Snail (or Helix aspera), like the other members of 
its order, breathes not by means of gills, but by means of lungs, not aerated 
water, but atmospheric air. The eyes are placed at the extremities of the four 
tentacles. As an embryo it is provided with a shell, so that Shakespeare’s 
allusion to the snail, which always was provided with a house, was very happy. 
It manages its locomotion by means of a single disc-shaped foot attached to the 
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