Some fifty days later, the eggs burst and the
little polypuses creep out, like little spiders, in great numbers; the
characteristic form of their limbs is not yet to be discerned in
detail, but their general outline is clear enough. And, by the way,
they are so small and helpless that the greater number perish; it is a
fact that they have been seen so extremely minute as to be
absolutely without organization, but nevertheless when touched they
moved. The eggs of the sepia look like big black myrtle-berries, and
they are linked all together like a bunch of grapes, clustered round a
centre, and are not easily sundered from one another: for the male
exudes over them some moist glairy stuff, which constitutes the sticky
gum. These eggs increase in size; and they are white at the outset,
but black and larger after the sprinkling of the male seminal fluid.
When it has come into being the young sepia is first
distinctly formed inside out of the white substance, and when the
egg bursts it comes out. The inner part is formed as soon as the
female lays the egg, something like a hail-stone; and out of this
substance the young sepia grows by a head-attachment, just as young
birds grow by a belly-attachment.
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