CHAPTER V: THE CUTTLE. SEPIA 

 Family Sepiid/B 



Shell six to ten inches long, internal, consisting of a broad, 

 leaf-like expanse of spongy, chalky substance, the posterior 

 portion narrowed to a beak and made up of thin plates with air 

 spaces between, the front portion not chambered, broadened and 

 much thickened. Body short and broad, scarcely longer than 

 the shell ; head short ; eyes large, with cornea complete ; arms 

 short, with stalked, horny-rimmed suckers in four rows ; fourth 

 arm on left hectocotylised at base ; tentacles long, contractile 

 into pockets behind eyes ; clubs with suckers. Distribution, 

 world-wide. Used as food and for bait. 



Genus SEPIA, Linn. 



The Common Cuttle (5. officinalis, Linn.), called also cut- 

 tle-fish and sepia, has the family characteristics and well repre- 

 sents this genus. This is the species which inhabits warm Euro- 

 pean waters near shore. It is a very showy object, strikingly 

 banded, and mottled with black, brilliantly iridescent in the sun, 

 and quick at changing colour by the manipulation of pigment 

 cells in the skin. 



The cuttle bone, on which the canary whets his beak, is a 

 "well-known object, but few would know where to go if sent to 

 "original sources" to get one. Even if one saw them in plenty 

 scattered on the beach after a storm — as is common on the 

 Atlantic shores, or picked them up afloat, one is still far from 

 knowing the secret. Watch the gulls after the storm picking 

 up what the waves left stranded in the way of fresh meat for 

 them. You are fortunate if you find a half-eaten cuttle, revealing 

 intact the porous cuttle-bone. With the clue thus furnished, 

 examine the clefts of rocks in search of a perfect specimen. It 

 has a broad body, considerably less than a foot long, brown, 

 cross-banded and spotted with purple, with white on the back. 



450 



