WATERS OF WESTERN INDIA. 75 



ling backwards. These fins, and the muscles that move them, 

 derive some support from the so-called cuttle-bone, which is really 

 an internal shell consisting of a leaf-shaped spongy mass with a 

 very hard sharp curved point at the rear end. 



The cuttle-bone, though you can crush it between your ringer 

 and thumb, has considerable durability. It survives all the rest 

 of the cuttle-fish, except his beak, in the stomachs of large fish and 

 Cetaceans ; and must often pass through these, or, in case of 

 cuttles dying a natural death, remain after the flesh has been eaten 

 By small marine scavengers of one sort or another. At any rate, 

 it is a common object of the sea-shore here ; and is used in native 

 medicine as an astringent, with what effect I don't know. In old 

 European practice it was a known antacid, whence the name of the 

 commonest European species, Sepia officinalis ; and also, in a 

 powdered state, was "pounce," which was used to dry writing 

 before blotting paper came into fashion, and to some extent, I 

 believe, in metallurgy. 



The next division of Decapods is that of Calamaries or Squids 

 (Loligo), distinguished from the cuttles by containing a rudimentary 

 shell (sometimes two or three of them) in the form of a thin horny 

 transparent blade, commonly known as a "sea-pen." 



The fins are rather caudal than lateral ; and the squids make 

 better head- way than any of their kin ; though they, too, seem to 

 prefer travelling backwards as a rule. They are much the most 

 active of the order, some of them can jump out of the water, and 

 are known to sailors as sea-arrows (the tail fins present something 

 the figure of an arrow-head). 



All the Calamaries prefer deep water, and the surface of it, 

 though they are by no means helpless at the bottom. They are 

 common on this coast. 



Indeed, there is hardly any sea where you will not find octopods, 

 cuttles, and squids, eating, and being eaten by, most other marine 

 creatures ; including the marine variety of Homo Sapiens. We have 

 here none of the class capable of catching a man alive ; the largest 

 cuttle bones I have got were not 13 inches long, and I never found 

 any squid of these parts exceed 3£ feet (includiug the tentacles), nor 

 are any monsters of the class reported by the native fishermen here. 



But the Enoploteuthis of the South seas is said to reach 6 feet long 

 of head and body alone, and Arehiteuthis of the North Atlantic is 

 " certainly known to attain a length of 15 feet or upwards to the 



