See Sepia. The bone of the cuttle-fish is hard on one side, but soft and yielding on the other; so as readily to receive pretty neat impres- sions from metals, &c. and afterwards to serve as a mould for casting metals, which thus take the figure of the original: the bone is likewise frequently em- ployed for cleaning or polishing silver. This fish con- tains in a certain distinct vessel a fluid as black as ink: which it is said to shed when purified, and thus to conceal itself by discolouring the water. The partic- ular qualities of this liquor are not yet determined. Dr Leigh says, he saw a letter which had been writ- ten with it ten years before, and which still continued. Some report that the ancients made their ink from it, and others, that it is the basis of China, or Indian-ink: but both these accounts appear to have little founda- tion. Pliny, speaking of the inks made use of in his time, after observing that the cuttle-fish is in this re- spect of a wonderful nature, adds, expressly, that ink was not made from it.