Some say that the octopus devours
its own species, but this statement is incorrect; it is doubtless
founded on the fact that the creature is often found with its
tentacles removed, which tentacles have really been eaten off by the
conger.
Fishes, all without exception, feed on spawn in the spawning
season; but in other respects the food varies with the varying
species. Some fishes are exclusively carnivorous, as the cartilaginous
genus, the conger, the channa or Serranus, the tunny, the bass, the
synodon or Dentex, the amia, the sea-perch, and the muraena. The red
mullet is carnivorous, but feeds also on sea-weed, on shell-fish,
and on mud. The grey mullet feeds on mud, the dascyllus on mud and
offal, the scarus or parrot-fish and the melanurus on sea-weed, the
saupe on offal and sea-weed; the saupe feeds also on zostera, and is
the only fish that is captured with a gourd. All fishes devour their
own species, with the single exception of the cestreus or mullet;
and the conger is especially ravenous in this respect. The cephalus
and the mullet in general are the only fish that eat no flesh; this
may be inferred from the facts that when caught they are never found
with flesh in their intestines, and that the bait used to catch them
is not flesh but barley-cake.
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