GREEDY CUTTLE-FISH

Taranaki Daily News, 29 December 1934, Page 18 (Supplement)

GREEDY CUTTLE-FISH

A BEAUTIFUL CREATURE. MECHANISM OF ITS MOVEMENTS. The common cuttle-fish, is particularly abundant this autumn, says the Children’s Newspaper. Near the coast young specimens may be caught and farther out those of larger size which go out to feed but usually return to the calm waters of the coast for breeding. Sepia as the cuttle-fish is called, is a beautiful creature when seen swimming, the oval body streaked or spotted with brown, the side fins gently waving as the creature slowly glides along). If anything disturbs it a sudden wave of colour passes over its body, changing the pattern in an instant, the body, specially in times of excitement, being now light, now dark, sometimes striped, sometimes spotted, ever changing. Besides slow swimming the cuttlefish has another way of progression by sending jets of water out of the body so that it may swim backward by powerful strokes in quick jerks. - The of this movement is very wonderful, a wide opening behind the head leading to a spacious cavity containing the gills which, when. full of water,' can be closed by a special fastening; the outer wall of the cavity is then contracted and the water forced out through a narrow funnel There are ten-arms, eight , of which are short, each bearing tour rows of suckers, the other two long and usually retracted in pockets one on each side of the body, these long tentacles have the expanded tips covered with suckers on short stalks.

When capturing its food—usually crabs—the cuttle-fish thrusts oUt a long tentacle very quickly and the. crab .is seized and brought to the mouth,' the suckers helping in the capture and the parrot-like jaws chewing it up at once. The body of sepia is strengthened by a large limy structure lying under the skin the cuttle-bone, the white hard Hat, oval body one often finds thrown up on the beach, very light from the air cavities contained in it. This is the remnant of an ancestral shell of much greater complexity. The cuttle-bone has - various uses: jt is given to birds for polishing their beaks, is used for polishing wood, and long ago was made into pounce ana Stored on paper- for drying ink before blotting-paper was invented. The common cuttle-fish, like its relatives, has a bag of ink squirts out when s ing a ‘‘-oke th a e y seX a o£ the old artists, the hardenedink which formed the. paint This Jnk-bag > is'even present in the newin by stalks to some object, the eggs, toown as sea-grapes, being “ black with very tough and Out of these come tiny cuttle-fishes rather less than an inch long and clps_ly resembling their parents. Eggs kept in a glass aquarium hatched out and the babies were the most entertaining , c^ e ?Ung W a 3 t fSi teresting to watch them teeamg, cateS the very tiny shrimp ; hke ammals known as copepods. As these a v active and quick in their movements the baby cuttle-fishes had to be very quick too, but they were extraordinarily agile and in a few weeks they could take real shrimps. < Cuttle-fishes are greedy creatures, and show this greed at an early age. SCOUTS LOSE A FRIEND ALWAYS IN THICK OF DANGER. A great champion of the Scout movement, and a man whose knowledge of languages made him of great service to the Scout International Bureau, has died in Alec Waley. He loved books, animals, and travel When the war broke out he volunteered, and because of his age was told that the only opening was despatch-riding. Could he ride a motor-cycle? Waley could not; but he promised to ride one in the afternoon. The rest of the morning he spent ,in learning, and he was a mass of bruises when he returned in the afternoon, but he passed h*He proved his courage and. unselfishness to the retreat from Mons. Later he was told to organise a carrier-pigeon service, and wherever there was most danger there he was to be found, taking his pigeons up to the front, cheerfully travelling along heavily-shelled roads in the hope of being able to save some other despatch rider’s life. . When the war was over he found work to do for the Scouts. Service and loyalty were, essential to his conception of life. .. This is a sorrowful year for his wife, who lost her father, Sir Henry Dickens, not long ago, and now loses so gallant and lovable a man in her husband.