CHAP. 45. (29.)—THE SÆPIA, THE LOLIGO, THE SCALLOP.
The loligo is also able to dart above the surface of the water,
and the scallop does the same, just like an arrow as it were.
In the sæpia,[1] the male is parti-coloured, blacker than the
female, and more courageous. If the female is struck with a
fish-spear, the male comes to her aid; but the female, the instant the male is struck, takes to flight. Both of them, as
soon as ever they find themselves in danger of being caught,
discharge[2] a kind of ink, which with them is in place of
blood,[3] and thus darkening the water, take to flight.
1. Plautus has a line in his Rudens, which shows that when the sæpia
was cooked for table, it was customary to take the eyes out. "Bid them
knock out his eyes, just as the cooks do with the sæpia."
2. Aristotle, Hist. Anim. B. iv. c. 2, states to a similar effect, as also
Ælian, Hist. Anim. B. i. c. 34; Oppian, Halieut. B. iii. 1. 156.
3. This so-called ink, Cuvier says, is neither their blood nor their bile,
but a liquid that is secreted in a bag peculiar to the animal. It is said,
that it is from the juices of certain polypi of the Eastern seas, that the
genuine Indian or Chinese ink is made; but M. Abel Remusat assures us
that he has found nothing in the Chinese writers to confirm this conjecture.