The female octopus at
times sits brooding over her eggs, and at other times squats in
front of her hole, stretching out her tentacles on guard.
The sepia lays her spawn near to land in the neighbourhood of
sea-weed or reeds or any off-sweepings such as brushwood, twigs, or
stones; and fishermen place heaps of faggots here and there on
purpose, and on to such heaps the female deposits a long continuous
roe in shape like a vine tendril. It lays or spirts out the spawn with
an effort, as though there were difficulty in the process. The
female calamary spawns at sea; and it emits the spawn, as does the
sepia, in the mass.
The calamary and the cuttle-fish are short-lived, as, with few
exceptions, they never see the year out; and the same statement is
applicable to the octopus.
From one single egg comes one single sepia; and this is likewise
true of the young calamary.
The male calamary differs from the female; for if its
gill-region be dilated and examined there are found two red formations
resembling breasts, with which the male is unprovided. In the sepia,
apart from this distinction in the sexes, the male, as has been
stated, is more mottled than the female.
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