224 THE STORY OF THE EARTH AND MAN. 



bottom, with its head upward. The Beleinnite was 

 therefore an exceptional cuttle-fish, intended to 

 stand erect on the sea-bottom and probably to dart 

 upward in search of its prey ; for the suckers and 

 hooks with which its arms were furnished show 

 that, like other cuttle-fishes, it was carnivorous and 

 predaceous. The guard may have been less pon- 

 derous when recent than in the fossil specimens, 

 and in some species it was of small size or slender, 

 and in others it was hollow. Possibly, also, the 

 soft tissues of the animal were not dense, and it 

 may have had swimming fins at the sides. In any 

 case they must have been active creatures, and 

 no doubt could dart backward by expelling water 

 from their gill chamber, while we know that they 

 had ink-bags, provided with that wonderfully di- 

 vided pigment, inimitable by art, with which the 

 modern Sepia darkens the water to shelter itself 

 from its enemies. The Belemnites must have 

 swarmed in the Mesozoic seas; and as squids and 

 cuttles now afford choice morsels to the larger 

 fishes, so did the Belemnites in their day. There 

 is evidence that even the great sea-lizards did not 

 disdain to feed on them. We can imagine a great 

 shoal of these creatures darting up and down, 

 seizing with their ten hooked arris their finny or 

 crustacean prey. In an instant a great fish or 

 saurian darts down among them ; they blacken the 

 water with a thick cloud of inky secretion and 

 disperse on all sides, while their enemy, blindly 



