There are several species of the octopus. One keeps close to the
surface, and is the largest of them all, and near the shore the size
is larger than in deep water; and there are others, small,
variegated in colour, which are not articles of food. There are two
others, one called the heledone, which differs from its congeners in
the length of its legs and in having one row of suckers-all the rest
of the molluscs having two,-the other nicknamed variously the
bolitaina or the 'onion,' and the ozolis or the 'stinkard'.
There are two others found in shells resembling those of the
testaceans. One of them is nicknamed by some persons the nautilus or
the pontilus, or by others the 'polypus' egg'; and the shell of this
creature is something like a separate valve of a deep scallop-shell.
This polypus lives very often near to the shore, and is apt to be
thrown up high and dry on the beach; under these circumstances it is
found with its shell detached, and dies by and by on dry land. These
polypods are small, and are shaped, as regards the form of their
bodies, like the bolbidia. There is another polypus that is placed
within a shell like a snail; it never comes out of the shell, but
lives inside the shell like the snail, and from time to time protrudes
its feelers.
Pages:
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171