"DAVY JONES' INKPOTS."

Westport Times, Volume VIII, Issue 1143, 20 January 1874, Page 4

"DAVY JONES' INKPOTS."

Mr Lee says in Land and Water—l have known many amusing instances of the squirting of water or ink by the cuttle-fish, startling the victim of it by its unexpected suddenneas. My friend Tom Hood, unaware of this • propensity of tho animal, hastened to lay hold of one which he had hooked in Looo Uarbour, and receiving its jet d'eau full in his face, exclaimed that" he did not exactly know what he had on his line, but he thought he had caught a youug garden engine." There is a communication between the ink-bag and the funnel or syphon-tube so that when the ink is ejected, it is forcibly 'thrown out together with the water. The very effort for escape, as the llev. J. G. Wood has well remarked, thus serves the double purposes of urging the creature away from the danger, and discolouring the water which it moves. This author also mentions an incident of a naval officer's white-duck trousers being "decorated" with its liquid missile, the aggrieved individual asserting that it took deliberate aim for that purpose. Not long ago 1 had a Saturday night's chat with some Sussex fisherman, with whom my friend J. K. Lord and I had often before held pleasant conversation on matters appertaining to their craft. Cuttle-fishes, sometimes called by sailors, "ink-spewers," 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 iu-board, when Bill, here, all of a sudden let go his holt, roars out like a stuck pig—' Oh-h-h—What the is that!' and tumbles back'ards into an empty fish-basket. We hadn't no time to 'tend to him till we'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 a leanin' back agin the skiff, wipin' his eyes, to get some muck out of 'em, 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 school-boy as has upset the inkstand over his hands and smeared his face all over with it in mbbin' the tears away while he was a-cryin' for fear the master'd lick him. Well, sir, it were 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 he come atop of the water, and aimed right at it, for you can see, sir, as Bill's nose looms as red as Beechy Head light in a frog, and any scuttle as misses it must be a fool. Bill won't forget that dose of ink for a good while yet —will 'eo, old man ? "