Now these three cuttle-fish I have just bought For one small drachma. And when I’ve cut off Their feelers and their fins, I then shall boil them; And, cutting up the main part of their meat Into small discs, and rubbing in some salt, After the guests already are sat down 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. From a letter from Mr. W. E. Cormack, an intelligent Newfoundland merchant, who distinguished himself by being the first European who succeeded in crossing Newfoundland—communicated by Professor Jameson to the “Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal” (1826, p. 32)—we learn that more than a hundred millions of cod are caught annually with cuttle-fish as bait, about two hundred millions with the capelin, and one hundred millions with herrings and “shell-fish.” Poole, in Dorsetshire, has long been one of the principal ports and depôts of the Newfoundland trade. My friend Mr. Wm. Penney of that town, very kindly obtained for me, in compliance with my request, some authentic recent information on the subject from a gentleman who for many years resided in Newfoundland, as the agent of a Poole firm. He writes:—