NATURAL HISTORY. 459 



used for food. Its eight long and flexible arms are covered 

 with suckers of various sizes, enabling their owner not only to 

 fix itself firmly to the rocks on which it dwells, but to seize 

 and retain with the greatest tenacity any unfortunate fish or 

 shell that may happen to come within its reach. Its powerful 

 parrot-like beak enables it not only to devour fishes, but even 

 to crush the shells and Crustacea that are entangled in its 

 deadly embraces. In England the Cuttle does not grow to 

 any great size, but in the Indian Seas it is absolutely danger- 

 ous, and the crews of boats are forced to be armed with a 

 hatchet, to cut off the arms of the cuttle-fish. 



There are few who have not heard of the colour called 

 " sepia." This is, or ought to be, prepared from a black pig- 

 ment, secreted by the Cuttle-fish, and used in order to escape 

 its foes, by blackening the water with the ink, and hurrying 

 off under shelter of the dense cloud of its own creating. Dr. 

 Buckland actually drew a portrait of a fossil Cuttle-fish with 

 some of its own ink that still remained in its body. 



The substance sold in the shops as cuttle-fish bone is a 

 chalky substance secreted from the mouth of the fish, and com- 

 posed of an infinite number of plates, joined by myriads of 

 little pillars.^ 



The entire body is soft, and encased in a coarse, leather-like 

 skin, unprotected by any shell. 



THE NAUTILUS. 



The ARGONAUT, or NAUTILUS, is an example of the testaceous 

 Molluscs. This curious creature, about which so many mar- 

 vellous and poetical tales have been told, is very abundant in 

 the Mediterranean. 



It has been clearly proved that the Nautilus does not urge 

 itself along the surface of the water by the expanded arms 

 used as sails. These arms are in fact used to cover the shell, 

 % 



* At a meeting of the Ashmolean Society at Oxford, Dr. Buckland, while exhib- 

 iting some relics of a huge fossil Saurian, said, " I know where that fellow lived, I 

 know where he died, and moreover, I know what he had for dinner on the day that 

 he died. He had a cuttle-fislufor dinner, and here is its bony ring, which I found in 

 the Saurian's stomach." 



