SHELLS AND MOLLUSCOUS ANIMALS. 233 



Besides his offensive and destructive weapons the 

 strong arms and the hard beak the cuttle-fish has 

 also a valuable means of defence. It, too., has its 

 enemies ; for in the economy of nature, one race 

 of animals serves as prey to another, or earth and 

 sea would not be large enough to contain them. 

 The grampus and the cachelot lie in wait for it, and 

 the fishermen entrap the cuttle-fishes for bait, and 

 for purposes of commerce. When attacked, this 

 animal can throw out an inky substance, which 

 darkens the water around, and in its cloud it 

 eludes its pursuers; but this very ink forms the 

 pigment called sepia, which is so valuable to 

 painters in water colours, and thus becomes an 

 additional cause of its being sought. This is a 

 very thick brownish-coloured substance. Cuvier 

 made his drawings of the cuttle-fish from the sepia 

 procured by himself from the animal. Even the 

 contents of the ink-bag of fossil cuttle-fishes retain 

 their colour and properties ; and Dr. Buckland has 

 drawings of species now extinct, executed with the 

 colour taken from the remains of these once living 

 animals. Our cuttle-fish yields as good a pigment 

 as the foreign kind; yet our sepia is generally 

 prepared from a species found in the Indian seas. 



That singular cluster, so like a bunch of grapes, 

 and commonly called by the fishermen Sea-grapes, 

 is a group of the eggs of the common cuttle-fish. 

 We often find it on the shore attached to some of 

 the larger sea-weeds ; and if, during the summer 

 months, we look into the baskets of shells and 

 sponges, and other marine curiosities, carried by 

 boys for sale, we shall often see it. The colour is 

 a dark purple, like that of the grape, and the outer 

 covering of the egg is flexible and tough, like 



