Have you ever seen the bone of a cuttle fish? It is a flat, white, very light thing, about the shape and size of a small sole, or flat fish, which may be often picked up on the sea-shore. One side is covered with a very hard substance, which stands out and forms a border all round; but the other side, which has no covering, is so soft that you can easily scrape it into powder with your nail. It is often used for making tooth-powder, and polishing certain things, such as hard woods and tortoise-shell.
This comes from some of a most curious family of fishes, called by the general name of Cephalopods, from the Greek words for head and feet, because their feet are placed round their heads, and they walk along with their heads downwards.
There are several kinds represented in the plate, which will give you a general notion of their form and appearance. In the structure of their bodies they possess much more in common with the kind of animals with which you are familiar, than the Actiniæ which make the coral, or the Acalephæ which produce the luminous appearance on the sea; though nothing can be more strange or unsightly than their aspect. They have a complete system of circulation, though their blood is neither warm nor red as ours is; their brains are enclosed in a strong case or skull of gristle, and their organs of sense are well developed; they have large and perfect eyes, (as you may see in the picture,) standing out prominently, and ears on each side of the brain. Their mouths are armed with very strong horny lips not unlike the bill of a parrot, between which is a very rough tongue. They have no noses, but it has been proved by experiment that they like some smells and dislike others, and it has been supposed that the quality of substances which affects merely the organ of smell in us, affects in like manner the whole surface of their bodies, or at least, of their heads. They not only resemble birds in their mouths, but also in having gizzards.
Their great arms or legs, for they serve both purposes equally well, of which they generally have eight, are very wonderful. They have no bones in them to act as levers, but are merely long and muscular masses of flesh which they move about with wonderful activity and power in all directions, having the most complete command over them. On their surfaces are great numbers of little suckers or cups resembling leather, which adhere very strongly to anybody which the animal chooses to embrace.
You have, no doubt, often played with a round piece of thick leather with a string through it, by wetting it and pressing it with your foot upon a stone, so as to lift the stone up, if it be not too heavy. It is just on the same principle that the suckers of the Cuttle Fish act.
These curious creatures gather up some of their arms into a point, as a sort of cut-water, as sailors would call it, and swim very rapidly, by means of the others, having their heads behind. They crawl in all directions with equal facility.
