Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 1.djvu/554

538 heard at a great distance; a herd of dolphins are scattered as though they were mere sprats, by one stroke of the thresher's tail, and stories of the combats between the whale on the one side and a combination of threshers and sword-fish on the other are too common to need more than a reference here. The form of battle usually consists in the sword-fish stabbing the whale from beneath, and so driving him up to the surface, when the fox-sharks spring upon him, and with resonant blows from their fearful knouts drive him below again upon the weapons of their allies.

The lasso is a weapon of some efficacy among various people; a form of lasso was even used by the Hungarians, and with great effect, in the War of Independence. It consisted of a kind of long-lashed whip, with a bullet slung at the end of the lash. And we have a sort of living lasso in the foot of the Cephalopod. The cephalopods are the polypes of Aristotle, and belong to the mollusks. They are of the first order of invertebrate, or spineless animals. Mollusca cephalopoda is the style and titles of the family Cephalopoda, in English meaning "foot-headed"—that is, its organs of locomotion, or the greater part of them, are attached to its head, whence they radiate for the most part in long, tough, and pliant tentacles or arms, of great muscular powers. On these tentacles are placed rows of suckers of very singular construction, which singly or simultaneously adhere with great tenacity to any object they come in contact with. The arms are extended in all directions when seeking prey. In the centre of them, in the middle of the stomach as it were, is the mouth of the creature, which is fully as curious as the rest of its anatomy, and consists of a large and strong-hooked beak, similar to a hawk's or parrot's. A fish or other creature comes within reach, and is instantly lassoed by one of the tentacles, the others winding around it also, to secure it in their folds. It is compressed tightly and drawn down to the beak, which rends and devours it at leisure, escape from these terrible folds being almost impossible.

The arms are also the means of propulsion, and are used as oars, by the aid of which the Octopus manages to progress through the water with considerable rapidity. Mr. Wood, in his popular natural history, treats on this point as follows: "All the Squids are very active, and some species, called 'flying squids' by sailors, and ommastrephes by naturalists, are able to dash out of the sea and to dart to considerable distances;" and he quotes Mr. Beale to show that they sometimes manage to propel themselves through the air for a distance of 80 or 100 yards, the action being likened to a something which might be achieved by a live corkscrew with eight prongs. In the account given m Bennett's "Whaling Voyage" they are often spoken of as leaping on board the ship, and even clear over it into the water on the other side. Nature has also furnished the cephalopod with another curious weapon of offence, or defence rather, in the shape of a bag of black