Another monster, ejected from the stomach of another whale, had great suckers, each sucker being supplied with “claws as powerful as those of a tiger.”[7] This last also had ocean-lamps, or “phosphorescent organs,” doubtless a help to himself in ocean depredations, and an added terror to myriads of fleeing fishes.
[7] Geographical Journal, Nov., 1898.
Yet neither strength nor speed, nor grasping arms, nor clinging suckers, nor tiger-like claws, nor parrot-like beak, can protect the cuttlefish against its supreme foe, the Sperm whale.
But it has a method of defence, or rather of escape, often efficacious even here. When in danger, it is able to pour forth a copious stream of black liquid, which so thickens and darkens the water around, that the wily creature is hidden, and slips away beyond reach of its pursuer.
The nervous system of the Cuttlefish is more developed than that of other Molluscs. Indeed, from the remarkable changes of colour seen when it is excited, and the tubercles which spring to view on its skin if it is made angry, one would be inclined to speak of its temperament as “highly irritable.” It also shows much more understanding than its cousins, the oysters and the clams.
CHAPTER XXI.
A GOODLY COMPANY OF CRABS
“The slimy bottom of the Deep.”
King Richard III.
IN all the wealth of Ocean-life, perhaps no creature flourishes more abundantly than do Crabs and their relatives.
We still talk of Jelly-fishes, Starfishes, Craw-fishes, Cuttlefishes, but no longer of Crab-fishes.