“They are rare at Guernsey, very small at Jersey; but near the island of Sark are numerous and very large....
“When swimming the devil-fish rests, so to speak, in its sheath. It swims with all its parts drawn close. It may be likened to a sleeve sewn up with a closed fish within. The protuberance which is the head pushes the water aside, and advances with a vague undulatory movement. Its two eyes, though large, are indistinct, being of the colour of the water.
“When in ambush, or seeking its prey, it retires into itself, grows smaller, and condenses itself. It is then scarcely distinguishable in the submarine twilight. At such times it looks like a mere ripple in the water. It resembles anything except a living creature. The devil-fish is crafty. When its victim is unsuspicious, it opens suddenly. A glutinous mass, endowed with a malignant will, what can be more horrible?
“It is in the most beautiful azure depths of the limpid water that this hideous, voracious polyp delights. It always conceals itself—a fact which increases its terrible associations. When they are seen, it is almost invariably after they have been captured. At night, however, and particularly in the hot season, the devil-fish becomes phosphorescent.
“The devil-fish not only swims, it walks. It is partly fish, partly reptile. It crawls [pg 147]upon the bed of the sea. At these times it makes use of its eight feelers, and creeps along in the fashion of a species of swift-moving caterpillar.
“It has no blood, no bones, no flesh. It is soft and flabby: a skin with nothing inside. Its eight tentacles may be turned inside out, like the fingers of a glove. It has a single orifice in the centre of its radii, which appears at first to be neither the vent nor the mouth. It is, in fact, both one and the other. The orifice performs a double function. The entire creature is cold.
“The jelly-fish of the Mediterranean is repulsive. Contact with that animated gelatinous substance which envelops the bather, in which the hands sink, and the nails scratch ineffectively, which can be torn without killing it, and which can be plucked off without entirely removing it—that fluid and yet tenacious creature which slips through the fingers, is disgusting; but no horror can equal the sudden apparition of the devil-fish, that Medusa with its eight serpents.”
Let us examine the creatures scientifically.
The bodies of these formidable animals are soft and fleshy, while the head protrudes; it is gifted with the usual organs of sense, the eyes being particularly prominent. “Not to oppress the reader with anatomical details,” says Figuier, “we shall just remark that the gaze of the cuttle-fish is decided and threatening. Its projecting eyes and golden-coloured iris are said to have something fascinating in them.” The mouth is armed with a pair of horny mandibles or beaks, not unlike those of a parrot, and is surrounded by a number of fleshy tentacles, provided, in most species, with numerous suckers, and even claws. The arms or tentacles serve for all purposes—locomotion, swimming, offence, and defence. The suckers occupy all the internal surface of the eight tentacular arms, and each arm carries about 240 of them. “The cuttle-fish,” says the writer last quoted, “would be at no loss to reply to the question of the Don Diego of Corneille—
“ ‘Rodrique, as-tu du cœur?’