164 
EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSKS. 
Scuttle . — The common cuttle-fish^ la seche, seiche, or cas- 
seron, of the French, is very generally eaten by onr fisher- 
men, and at Great Yarmouth they bring them in baskets 
to the houses for sale, recommending them as excellent 
and wholesome food. Cuttle-fish are often taken on the 
fishing lines, and will follow the bait to the surface, 
sucking it and holding fast by their long tentacles,* but 
we seldom find them alive on the shore, though their 
white bones are constantly picked up ; and an immense 
number of these bones sometimes strew the beach from 
Beachy Head to Pevensey, while numbers float on the 
water. This was particularly the case there some years 
ago. It seemed as if there had been some epidemic 
amongst the cuttles which caused this great mortality, 
for certainly many basketfuls of bones might easily have 
been collected. They are not without their use ; and at 
Liverpool, cuttle-bones are sold to the druggists for 
making tooth-powder, as much as 12 cwt. arriving at a 
time;t and Pliny says that the ashes of calcined shells 
of the Sepia were used for extracting pointed weapons 
which had pierced the flesh. J 
In Germany, it is called the Blackjisch, or Tintenfisch. 
The animal is curious, very flat, with w'hite stripes 
across its body, the groundwork being dark brown. 
The head is brown, as well as the arms, but the inside 
of the latter is white, and is furnished with four rows of 
suckers. Its two tentacular arms are very long, ex- 
panded broadly at the tips, and are also furnished with 
suckers. The beak is hard and black, shaped like that 
of a parrot. 
* * Sea Fish,’ etc., by W. B. Lord. 
f Pliipson’s ‘Utilization of Minute Life.’ 
X Pliny, Nat. Hist. vol. vi. bk. xxxii. c. 43. 
