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As for cleverness in attacking and catching prey, we may perceive subtle examples of it in many different species. The starfish,
1
for example, knowing that everything with which it comes in contact dissolves and liquefies, offers its body and is indifferent to the contact of those that overtake or meet it. You know, of course, the property of the torpedo
2
: not only does it paralyse all those who touch it, but even through the net creates a heavy numbness in the hands of the trawlers. And some who have experimented further with it report that if it is washed ashore alive and you pour water on it from above, you may perceive the numbness mounting to the hand and dulling your sense of touch by way of the water which, so it seems, suffers a change and is first infected.
3
Having, therefore, an innate sense of this power, it never makes a frontal attack or endangers itself; rather, it swims in a circle around its prey and discharges its shocks as if they were darts, thus poisoning first the water, then through the water the creature which can neither defend itself nor escape, being held fast as if by chains and frozen stiff.
The so-called fisherman
4
is known to many; he gets his name from his actions. Aristotle
5
says that the cuttlefish also makes use of this stratagem: he lets down, like a fishing line, a tentacle from his neck which is naturally designed to extend to a great length when it is released, or to be drawn to him when it is pulled in. So when he espies a little fish, he gives it the feeler to bite and then by degrees imperceptibly draws it back toward himself until the prey attached to the arm is within reach of his mouth.
The chameleon,
11
to be sure, is metachromatic, but not from any design or desire to conceal itself; it changes colour uselessly from fear, being naturally timid and cowardly. And this is consistent with the abundance of air in it, as Theophrastus
12
says; for nearly the whole body of the creature is occupied by its lungs,
13
which shows it to be full of air and for this reason easily moved to change colour. But this same action on the part of the octopus is not an emotional response, but a deliberate change, since it uses this device to escape what it fears and to capture what it feeds on: by this deceit it can both seize the latter, which does not try to escape, and avoid the former, which proceeds on its way. Now the story that it eats its own tentacles
14
is a lie, but it is true that it fears the moray and the conger. It is, in fact, maltreated by them; for it cannot do them harm, since they slip from its grasp. On the other hand, when the crawfish
15
has once got them in its grasp, it wins the victory easily, for smoothness is no aid against roughness; yet when the octopus has once thrust its tentacles inside the crawfish, the latter succumbs. And so Nature has created this cycle
16
and succession of mutual pursuit and flight as a field for the exercise and competitive practice of adroitness and intelligence.
De sollertia animalium. Plutarch. Harold Cherniss (Translator), William C. Helmbold (Translator). Cambridge, MA. 1957.
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