238 SEPlADiE. 



S. officinalis, Linnaeus. 



Animal with zebra-like markings on the back. Bone ovate. 



Plate OOO, and Plate PPP, fig. 1. 



Sepia officinalis, Linnaeus, Fauna Suecia, p. 2106. — Syst. Nat. Ed. xii. vol. i. 

 p. 1095. — Pennant, Brit. Zool. vol. iv. p. 55. — Bruguiere, 

 Enc. Meth. pi. 76, f. 56.— Bosc. Vers. i. p. 45. — Leach, Nat. 

 Misc. t. iii. p. 138. — Lamarck, Anim. sans Vert. t. vii. p. 

 668.— Carus, Nov. Act. Nat. Cur. t. xii. p. 317, pi. 38.— 

 Risso, Hist. Nat. Eur. Mer. t. iv. p. 3. — Blainville, Diet. 

 Sc. Nat. t. 48. — Fleming, Brit. An. p. 252. — Potiez and 

 Michaud, Gall, des Moll, de Douai, t. i. p. 8. — Philippi, 

 Enum. Moll. Sicil. vol. i. p. 241. — Forbes, Malac. Mon. p. i. — 

 D'Orbigny, Moll, de Canaries, p. 20. — Moll. Rec. et Foss. 

 vol. i. p. 272. — D'Orbigny and Ferussac, Ceph. Acet. p. 

 260. Seiches: plates 1, 2, 3 (fig. 1 — 3), and 17 (fig. 12).— 

 Macgillivray, Moll. Ab. p. 29. — Ball, Proc. Royal Irish 

 Acad. vol. ii. p. 192. — Loven, Index Moll. Scand. p. 3. — 

 Johnston, Berw. Club Tran. vol. i. p. 200. — Verany, Moll. 

 Med. vol. i. p. 65, pi. 24, 25.— Alder, Cat. Mol. North, p. 15. 



The common cuttle-fish is one of the most beautiful and 

 curious of British mollusks ; but although its bone, or 

 shell, is frequently cast up on all our sandy shores, the 

 creature itself is rarely seen and seldom taken. Its body 

 is depressed and broad, rounded posteriorly, and truncated, 

 although centrally produced, anteriorly ; its outline is that 

 of an escutcheon. All around the margin run narrow and 

 delicate fins, one on each side, of equal breadth, except at 

 the extremity, where they meet and present, as it were, a 

 notched termination to the body. The back is smooth, or 

 slightly tuberculated. The head is much narrower than 

 the body, although in itself broad, prominent in the region 

 of the eyes, and crowned above with eight rather short, 

 stout, lanceolate, subcarinated arms. On their inner sides 

 are four rows of equal and regular, but rather small 



