. Cuvier's animal kingdom : arranged according to its organization. Animals. CEPHALOPODES. 339 with numerous organs for seizing their prey, they destroy many Fishes and Crusta- ceous animals. Their flesh is eatable. Their inky secretion is employed in painting, and from it some have asserted that the China ink of commerce is manufactured.* The Cephalopoils comprise only one orderf, which we divide into genera from the nature of the shell. Those which have no external shell formed, according to Linnaeus, the single genus Sepia, or Cuttle-fish,t which we now subdivide as follows :— The Poulpes {
. Cuvier's animal kingdom : arranged according to its organization. Animals. CEPHALOPODES. 339 with numerous organs for seizing their prey, they destroy many Fishes and Crusta- ceous animals. Their flesh is eatable. Their inky secretion is employed in painting, and from it some have asserted that the China ink of commerce is manufactured.* The Cephalopoils comprise only one orderf, which we divide into genera from the nature of the shell. Those which have no external shell formed, according to Linnaeus, the single genus Sepia, or Cuttle-fish,t which we now subdivide as follows :— The Poulpes {Octopus, Lam.) ; the Polypiis of the ancients. These have only two small conical grains of a homy substance imbedded in their back, one on each side ; and their sac, having no fins, represents an oval purse. Their feet are eight in number, all nearly of equal size, very large in proportion to the body, and united together at their insertions by a mem- brane. The Octopus uses them equally in swimming, in creeping, and in seizing its prey. From their length and strength they are formidable weapons, by means of which the prey is entangled and caught ; and they have often been the destruction of swimmers. § The eyes are proportionally small, and the skin can be made at will to contract over them so as to cover them completely. The ink bag is embedded in the liver. The glands of the oviducts are small. Some (the Poli/pes of Aristotle) have their suckers in two alternating rows along [the oral margin] of each foot. The common species (Sepia octopodia, Linn.), with a minutely granulous skin, arms six times as long as the body, and garnished with 120 pairs of suckers, infests our coasts in sunnner, where it destroys an immense quantity of Crustacea. The seas of the tropics produce the Octopus granulatus. Lam. (Sepia rugosa, Bosc.) Séb. iii. ii. 2, 3, known by its more decidedly granulated body, its arms only a little longer than itself, garnished with fifty pairs of suckers. Some b
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