that this eight-ton cuttlefish story was true, so we need have no doubts
about it.

The cuttlefish, which supplies the bone we buy for our canaries, is a very
terrible fish indeed.

The bone, as we call it, is not really bone, but a sort of half-formed
shell which the cuttlefish wears under its skin.

It has a large round body, surrounded by eight arms, which are many times
the length of the body, and which it can twist or turn in any direction.
The mouth is in the centre of these arms. Professor Winchell describes
this ugly creature for us. He says:

"Staring out from either side of the head (the head and body are really
one) is a pair of large, glassy eyes, which send a shudder over the
beholder. At the bottom of the sea the creature turns its eight arms down,
and walks like a huge submarine spider, thrusting its arms into the
crevices of the rocks, and extracting thence the luckless crab that had
thought itself secure from so bulky a foe. Each of the arms is covered
with what are called suckers. Each sucker consists of a little round horny
ridge, forming a little cup, which is attached to the arm by a stem. When
the arm is pressed upon an object, the effort to escape from the grasp of
the arm causes a suction which effectually retains the object."

Professor Winchell goes on to tell that these cuttlefish or octopods
sometimes attain a very great size, and that sailors tell wonderful
stories about them. In one of these stories, the captain of a ship
declared that, while sailing off the African coast, he sent three of his
men over the side of the ship to scrape it. While they were at their work