For _sleves_ a slender shaft the swain provides Cylindric, like a distaff: round the sides Adjacent hooks their radiant files extend, With points supine the dreadful rows descend, To silent deeps the fatal engine slides, The steely curves a painted rainbow hides. The incurious sleve invades his artful fate, And throws his branching snouts around the bait. Within the hooks the thready tendrils twine, Entangled in th’ embrace they would resign. In vain to disengage his hold he tries, In his own chains the self-caught captive dies. Oppian also describes another method of taking cuttles, which in some localities is still resorted to at certain seasons. The fishermen fasten the end of a line round a living female octopus or sepia, and lower her down towards a rocky bottom. On the male coming to woo he comes to woe, for both are pulled up together. There is nothing incredible in this. The Japanese, at the present day, use a spawning female fish as a lure for others of the same species. Having found one nearly, but not quite, ready to deposit her roe, they squeeze from her a portion of it, which hangs suspended from the body, and then anchor her near the shore by a hook and line. The males are instinctively drawn to the spot, a seine is shot round them, and all are easily taken. A similar process is commonly resorted to by entomologists for the capture of rare species of moths and butterflies. Cuttles are often caught in the Adriatic by sinking in the sea branches of trees and faggots, which entice them, as being suitable spawning ground and offering good anchorage for their eggs. It is somewhat remarkable that whilst the octopus shuns the light and retreats from that of a lanthorn, the cuttle and squid are attracted by it. At Trincomalee, at certain seasons of the year, the bay is illuminated during the night by hundreds of lights of fishing boats moving hither and thither. A dead cuttle is generally the bait used. This is suspended in the water, and when hauled in from time to time, one or more of its species are found fast to it, and feeding on their deceased relative. When removed from the water they emit a peculiar “squelching” noise, which has been compared to the grunting of a hog. It appears to me to be caused by the forcing of air, instead of water, through the syphon tube.[27] They are also frequently taken by spearing, as described by Edward Forbes; and my friend, Mr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., mentions[28] having seen in a curious Japanese book, preserved in the British Museum, a picture of a man in a boat engaged in catching cuttle-fishes with a spear, and also of a fishmonger’s shop in Japan at which a number of enormous cuttle-fishes are represented hanging up for sale.