Fig. 121.—Eggs of the squid.
The squid has a shell, but it is very small, and internal. It is called the pen, and that of some species is the cuttlefish bone of commerce (Fig. 120). In specimens six or seven feet long, taken at Santa Catalina, California, the pen was fifteen inches long and glasslike—a perfect pen in shape. Such is this peculiar creature, and if we add that it can change its color from very dark brown to almost white, adapting it to the color of the bottom over which it rests, we can form some idea of one of the strangest of all animals. They deposit eggs in clusters.
The squids range in size from gigantic specimens seventy or more feet in length to the minute Cranchia, which is luminous at times. Some have no tails, some only the suggestion of a tail, some have very pointed ones, some very broad ones. In specimens of the little Cranchia which I observed the head was very small and the body long in proportion. One form appears to have side winglike fins. The large squids live in the deep sea, and most of the specimens known have been taken from the deep fjords of Newfoundland, which appears to be a favorite locality for them. They doubtless live everywhere in the deep seas, as they are almost invariably found in the stomach of the sperm whale, evidently constituting a favorite food of this giant-toothed whale.
The squids live mainly upon fishes, and are very skillful in taking them, poising like a cat, near the bottom, creeping upon a school of sardines,—all the time simulating the color of the bottom, and almost invisible but for their large, dark eyes standing out,—then suddenly darting tail first into the school, flinging the long arms at the flying fishes, and almost always catching one, which is dragged up to the parrotlike bill and dismembered. In the six and seven foot squids taken at Santa Catalina the stomachs were filled with seaweed, showing that at least some of these animals are vegetarians.
On all tropical shores is found a beautiful coiled shell, the Spirula, with little pearly septa dividing it. I have seen a windrow of these shells a mile long, but never found the animal and shell together, so easily are they disconnected. It is the smallest and the most beautiful of all the cephalopods.
Fig. 122.—Octopus or devilfish.
The familiar devilfish or octopus (Fig. 122) is another form, a bottom lover, found among the rocks, rarely attempting to swim. It has a round, baglike body, often covered with soft, fleshy spines; two fiery green eyes, which always seem to emit a baneful light; eight sucker-lined arms, which can be thrown in any direction, and the beak and ink bag noticed in the squid, but no pen or shell. The octopus lives in dens or crevices in the rocks, and ranges in size from specimens a foot or two across to giants with arms having a radial spread of nearly thirty feet (Fig. 123). These large individuals are found along the Pacific coast from California to Alaska, and when caught generally make a desperate struggle for liberty and display a vast amount of strength. I once kept a number in a tank, which were two or three feet across, and when they had grasped firmly it was almost impossible to wrench them from the glass. They differed much in temper. Some would apparently play with my hand, tapping it with their tentacles, or gripping it gently. Others would crouch like miniature tigers, quivering with rage, and with green eyes shining, would spring upon it and attempt to smother it with their arms—a most disagreeable sensation, especially when it was almost impossible to remove the hand from the uncanny grasp without lacerating their flesh. One large octopus in this family, when it obtained a grip, would hold my hand firmly; hence I concluded that a specimen thirty feet across, similar to those represented by casts in the Yale and National Museums, might easily overcome a man. Yet the octopus is a very timid animal in the open water. I rarely caught them either in Florida or California, unless they were cornered, and they never attempted to bite. But I seized one in the coral, and it wound about my arm so tightly that I was obliged to wrench away twenty or more pounds of branch coral, before I could release it without laceration. When attacked the octopus changes color with great rapidity from black to gray, and when enraged it often has the appearance of a leopard. Then it hurls a cloud of ink into the water, and endeavors to slink away under this cover, gliding through crevices that would seem entirely too small to admit so large an animal.