atch
a sea-horse, we might get even stranger fish upon our hooks. If we had
a very large hook, a long and strong line, and a tempting bait, it is
just possible, if we were to go to exactly the right spot, and had
extraordinary good fortune, that we might catch such a beauty as this.

[Illustration]

This fellow you will probably recognize as the Cuttle-fish. Some
persons call it the Devil-fish, but the name is misapplied. The
Devil-fish is a different kind of a sea monster. But the Cuttle-fish
is bad enough to have the very worst name that could be bestowed upon
him. Those great arms, which sometimes grow to a length of several
feet, he uses to wrap around his prey, and they are strong and tough.
He has two eyes and a little mouth, and is about as pugnacious a fish
as is to be found anywhere. If I should ever haul a Cuttle-fish into
my boat, I think I should feel very much like getting out, no matter
how deep the water might be.

There was once a sea captain, who was walking on a beach with some of
his men, when he spied one of these Cuttle-fish, travelling over the
sand towards the water. He thought it would be a fine thing to capture
such a strange fish, and he ran after it, and caught hold of one of
its legs. But he soon wished that it had got away from him, for the
horrid creature turned on him, and wrapped several of its long arms or
legs--whichever they may be--around him, and the poor captain soon
began to fear that he himself would not be able to escape.

Nothing that he could do would loosen the hold of the monster upon
him, and if it had not been for a sailor who ran up with a hatchet and
cut the limbs of the Cuttle-fish from its body, the poor captain might
have perished in the embrace of this most disagreeable of all fishes.
There are a great many stories told of this fish, and it is very
probable that all the worst ones are true. Canary birds are very fond
of pecking at the bones taken from small Cuttle-fish, and India-ink is
made from a black substance that it secretes, but I would rather do
without canary birds altogether, and never use India-ink, than to be
obliged to catch my own Cuttle-fish.

But while we are hauling strange things up from the deep, suppose we
take something that is not exactly a fish, but which is alive and
lives in the water. What do you think of a living thing like this?

This is a polypier, and its particular name is the _fungia_ being so
called because it resembles a vegeta