I then shall put them in the frying-pan,
And serve up hot towards the end of supper.
Eriphus says, in his “Melibœa:”—
These things poor men cannot afford to buy;—
The entrails of the tunny, or the head
Of greedy pike, or conger, or cuttle-fish,
Which I don’t think the gods above despise.
Athenæus cites a great many more authors, who testify to the esteem in which the cephalopoda were held in the olden times, as the constituents of dainty dishes.
Cuttle-fishes are employed as bait by fishermen, and, by their abundance at certain seasons in the neighbourhood of Newfoundland, they exercise an important influence on the cod-fishery; thus playing, as D’Orbigny remarks, an important part in the commerce of the most flourishing nations of Europe.