130 LIFE AXD HER CHILDREN. 
too strong for him to conquer, and who in their turn 
feed on his fleshy .arms. 
With such advantages and weapons of attack, can 
we wonder that not only the octopus but also his 
ten-armed relations, the cuttles and the squids, are 
to be found of different sizes and kinds all over the 
sea ? There is the little Sepiola, often caught off our 
coasts in the nets of the shrimpers, whose body is 
only about half an inch long, with small flaps or fins 
on the sides. He, like the cuttle-fish, so far clings to 
the old habits of the mollusca as to form a long thin 
shell on his back under his mantle ; and this shell we 
call a " pen " when we find it on the shore because it 
is shaped like one. He makes himself a shelter by 
blowing a hole in the sand with jets of water from 
his funnel/ and uses the suckers of his arms to 
remove and arrange the small stones. Then he sits 
in his hole, with his large goggle eyes peering out, 
and catches the shrimps and smaller crabs as they 
pass by. There is the common cuttle-fish which 
forms in its mantle the white chalky shell known 
as the " cuttle-bone." It generally floats about or 
creeps over the bottom of rocky pools ; till fright- 
ened, or, wishing to attack some animal, it shoots 
out suddenly a jet from its funnel and flies back- 
wards through the water, clutching its prey on the 
road. The dark horny grape -like bunches which 
we find on the shore are the eggs of the cuttle- 
fish. There are the Calamaries, whose shell is a 
horny "pen," and some of which living in the open 
ocean have sharp hooks in the centre of their 
suckers, making cruel weapons of attack against 
the unfortunate fish, who have the sharp hooks 
