4. The female, in depositing her ova, appears to collect them on the cartilaginous appendages by means of the broad part of the folded tail. She produces them by pressing with her tail and bending her body. These cartilaginous processes at the season of oviposition increase in size, in order to become appropriate receptacles for the ova. The ova are deposited on these processes, as those of the sepia are deposited upon broken pieces of wood or anything floating in the sea. This is the manner of depositing them; but after they have been ripened twenty days, they are cast off altogether in a mass, as they appear when separated from the parent; in fifteen days, at the outside, the carabi are produced from these ova, and they are often taken off less than a finger's length. The ova are produced before Arcturus, and after Arcturus they are cast off. 5. The cyphæ among the carides contain their ova about four months. The carabi are found in rough and rocky places, the astaci in those that are smooth; but neither of them inhabit mud. For this cause the astaci are found in the Hellespont and near Thasus; the carabi in the neighbourhood of Sigeum and Athos. Fishermen, when they pursue their calling in the open sea, distinguish the rough and muddy places by the nature of the shore, and other signs. In the spring and winter they come near the shore; in summer time they go into deep water, sometimes for the sake of warmth, and sometimes for the cold. 6. Those called arcti[167] breed nearly at the same time as the carabi, wherefore they are most excellent in winter and in spring before the breeding season, and they are worst after they have deposited their ova. They change their shell in the spring, like the serpent, which puts off its old age, as it is called. Both the carabi and the carcini do this when they are young, as well as afterwards. All the carabi are long-lived. [167] Perhaps, Cancer spinosissimus. CHAPTER XVI. 1. The malacia produce a white ovum after sexual intercourse; in the course of time this becomes sandy, like that of the testacea. The polypus deposits its ova in holes or pots, or any other hollow place; the ovum is like bunches of the wild vine and of the white poplar, as was observed before; when the ova are produced they remain suspended from the hole in which they were deposited; and the ova are so numerous, that when taken out they will fill a vessel much larger than the head of the polypus in which they were contained. 2. About fifty days afterwards the young polypi burst the eggs and escape, like phalangia, in great numbers. The particular shape of each limb is not distinct, though the general form is plain. Many of them perish from their small size and debility. Some have been observed so small that they could not be distinguished, unless they were touched, when they were seen to move.