204 



MOLLUSCA. 



different species, and .spouted out at the will of the 

 animal, in surprising abundance, through the funnel. 

 This substance, frequently called ink, from the use 

 to which it was anciently applied, mixes freely with 

 the water, diffusing an impenetrable obscurity for 

 some distance around, by which the animal often 

 escapes from danger; thus, as our illustrious Ray 

 wittily remarked, hiding itself, like an obscure and 

 prolix author, under its own ink. When dried, this 

 substance affords an excellent pigment, and it has 

 been supposed to be the material of the celebrated 

 Indian ink of China, but this is very doubtful. Its 

 qualities seem incapable of destruction by age ; for 

 Dr. Buckland, having presented some which was 

 found in fossil specimens to a celebrated painter, 

 was eagerly asked, " From what colourman he could 

 procure more of a sepia so excellent ! " The skin of 

 those Cephalopoda which are unfurnished with an 

 external shell is of changeable hues, brightening 

 and fading in spots more rapidly than that of the 

 Chameleon. 



It is rather singular that the food seized by the 

 parrot-like beak should be conveyed to a crop, and 

 thence to a real muscular gizzard, like that of a 

 fowl. Besides the horny or shelly column already 

 noticed, we discover another vestige of a skeleton 

 in a cartilaginous case which encloses the great 

 ganglion, or brain, and represents the skull of su- 

 perior animals; other pieces of cartilage, but scat- 

 tered and unconnected, seem to represent the more 

 important bones. 



