DAVY JONES' INKPOTS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VI, Issue 326, 31 January 1874, Page 3

DAVY JONES' INKPOTS.

Mr. Lees says in " Laud and Water " : — I have known many arousing incidents of the squirting of water of ink by the cuttle-fish, startling the victim of it by its unexpected Buddenness. My friend Tom Hood, unaware of this propensity of the animal, hastened to lay hold of one which he had hooked in Looe Harbor, and receiving its jet d'eau full m the face, exclaimed that " he did not exactly know what he had on his line, but thought he had caught a young garden engine." There is a communication between the ink-bag and the funnel or syphon-tubes, so that when the ink is ejected it is forcibly thrown out together with the water. The very effort for escape, as the Rev. J. G. Wood has well remarked, thus serves the double purpose of urging the creature away from the danger, and discoloring the water which it moves. This author also mentions an incident of a naval officer's whiterduek trousers being "decorated" with his liquid missile, the aggrieved individual asserting .that it took deliberate aim for that purpose. Not long ago^l had a Saturday night's chat with some Sussex fishermen with whom my friend J. El. Lord and I had often before held pleasant conversation on matters appertaining to their craft. Cuttle fishes, sometimes called by Bailors "iukspewers," were mentioned, and one of the party related the following adventure of a shipmate who was present, I must tell it in his own language. "We was out fishin' one quiet night," he said, " and had just got our trawl awash, and was a-goin ( to hand it inboard, when Bill, here, all of a sudden lets go his hold, roars out like a stuck pig, ' Oh-h-h ! What the is that ?' and tumbles back'ards into an empty fish-basket. We had'nt no time to 'ttend to him till w'd got our haul on deck, but I guessed what was up, and when we looked round we pretty near split our sides with laughing. There was Bill aleanin' back agin the skiff, wipin' his eyes, to get some muck out of them, as he said made 'em smart, and his face for all the world as if Davy Jones had emptied a tar-barrel over his head, and he looking as. doleful as a schoolboy as has upset the inkstand over his hands and smears his face all over with it in rubbin' the tears away while he was a-cryin' for fear the master'd lick him. Well, sir, it was one o' them scuttles as we're talkin' about, as we'd brought up, and they can shoot straight and no mistake. It's my opinion as Mr. Scuttle sighted Bill's nose as soon as Mb come atop of the water, and aime.l right at it, for you can see, sir, as Bill's nose looms as.Becchy Head light in a fog, and any scu f tie as misses it must be a fool. Bill won't forget that dose of ink for a, good while yet — will 'cc old man ?"