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.
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