Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XV.djvu/306

 294 SQUASH BUG the stem large and fleshy, skin never becoming hard ; color reddish at maturity ; quality ex- cellent. This has for a long time been regard- ed as the best of all winter varieties, but it is excelled by the Hubbard, which is somewhat similar in shape and in character of stem ; the color of the often ribbed rind is clay-blue or olive-green, and it becomes so extremely hard that it requires to be cut with a hatchet ; the flesh is thick, dry, and sweet; it keeps till spring. The Butman is similar in form, skin white and green, and regarded as the finest of all. The Yokohama, from Japan, is a singu- larly flattened variety, with a much warted green skin, which turns to orange ; this has a very long and angled stem. The turban va- riety is of good quality, and is remarkable for a projection of a portion of the fruit beyond the line which shows where the calyx tube was attached to the ovary. SQUASH BUG, a well known hemipterous in- sect, the coreus tristis (De Geer). It is about three quarters of an inch long, with a triangu- lar head ; the general color is ochre yellow, rendered dusky above by numerous black dots ; the sharp edges of the abdomen project beyond the closed wing covers; on the back of the head, behind the eyes, are two glassy raised eyelets. They appear by the last of June or beginning of July, when the squash vines have put out a few leaves, pair, and soon be- gin to lay their eggs; they con- ceal themselves by day, and in the evening fasten their eggs in little patches on the (Coreus tristis) under side of the leaves by a gummy substance; the eggs are soon hatched, and the young, pale ashy and with large antennae, appear in successive broods during summer, pass through their last change, attain their full size in September and October, and pass the winter and spring in a torpid state in crevices. The loss of sap from the punctures of these insects causes the leaves to become brown, dry, and wrinkled, when they are deserted for fresh ones. When irritated, and particularly when crushed, they give out a strong, nauseous odor. It is best to destroy them before they have laid their eggs. SQUID, a cephalopodous mollusk, of the di- branchiate order, tribe decapoda, family teu- thida, of which the typical genus is loligo (Lam.). The body is elongated, tapering be- hind, with a pair of terminal fins ; branchiae two; arms eight, with two rows of peduncu- lated suckers, and two very long tentacles ; the internal shell, or gladius, is reduced to a horny quill-shaped plate, with two lateral expansions the ink bag is well developed, and its secretion jet black. They are good swimmers, all ma- rine, and never leave the water ; they can creep head down on the cephalic disk ; the ova are moMd in long, gelatinous, cylindrical sheaths, called sea grapes, and may be nearly 40,000 in SQUID number ; the sight is good, and the movements are rapid. They are sometimes called calama- ries, from the internal pen-like bone and ink bag, and the general cylindrical form like an ancient escritoire. The small species are gre- garious, but the large hooked squids are solitary and oceanic. The common squid of the New England coast, the L. [ommastrephes] illecebrosa (Lesueur), is from 6 to 12 in. long ; the colors vary rapidly, with the will of the animal, from yellowish white to bluish, violet, brown, red, and orange, in spots or general tint. They swim rapidly backward by dilating and con- tracting the sac-like body, and forward by the terminal fin ; they devour numbers of small fish and crustaceans, and are eaten by larger fishes, and used as bait by cod fishers. Squids are found from Norway to New Zealand ; the L. Bulgaria (Lam.), common about the shores of Great Britain, and used in Cornwall as a bait for cod, attains a length of 1 to 1$ ft. The occurrence of large squids on the North American coast has within a few years directed Common Squid of Great Britain (Loligo vulgaris). attention to old stories of the gigantic mythical Tcroken of Pontoppidan. Prof. Steenstriip has collected many instances of gigantic squids on the coasts of northern Europe from 1549 to the present time; they have also been found in tropical and southern waters, and were known to Aristotle and Pliny. It is proved that the sperm whale feeds chiefly upon these large squids, and many interesting fragments have been obtained from the stomach of this ceta- cean. In 1872 one was found floating dead on the Grand Banks, 15 ft. long, 4-f ft. in circumference, and the longest arms 9 ft.; this was probably the architeuthis monachvi (Steenstrup), or the sea monk. (See "Ameri- can Naturalist," February, 1873.) In October, 1873, one was seen, and a piece of an arm cut off, near the coast of Newfoundland ; the body was about 10 ft. long, with a diameter of 2 ft., head 2 ft. long, and caudal fin 22 in. wide. The creature being wounded attacked the boat, when the fisherman cut off one of the arms with his axe, about 20 ft. long and at least 10