ON CEPHALOPODA. ols 
and which had been found by Peron and Lesueur dead, and 
floating on the surface of the sea, in their passage from the 
Moluccas to the Isle of France, was lost or mislaid in the 
collections of the museum in the Jardin du Roi, so that it was 
impossible to confirm by an attentive observation that which 
probably had only been the result of a rapid and superficial 
examination. What seems to prove this is, that the figure 
given in the French Encyclopedia corresponds very incom- 
pletely to that given by Lesueur in his “ Voyage in the Austral 
Ocean,” and in which (singular enough) the animal, which had 
only been seen dead, is yet coloured of a lively carnation red. 
It would not, therefore, be at all surprising if the similitude 
of the animal of the spirula to the sepiz were exaggerated. 
We find, indeed, that M. de Freminville, a judicious observer, 
has declared that this animal, which he saw in the living 
state, is totally different from what we would be led to believe 
from the descriptions of others. So that it appears that this 
subject yet remains in considerable doubt; still it seems pro- 
bable, even from the incomplete figure given by Rumphius of 
the nautilus Pompilius, that the resemblance is not so great 
as the French naturalists and travellers just mentioned would 
lead us to believe. As for the shell, it is equally likely that it 
is altogether interior, which may be presumed from its slender- 
ness, its fragility, and the total absence of coloration. 
As yet but one species of spirula is known, spirula Aus- 
tralis, or Peronii ; itis the nautilus spirula of Linneus. This 
is a handsome and very slender shell, altogether white, and 
nacreous in the interior, and appears to be very common in the 
Atlantic Ocean, in its intertropical parts, but probably it is 
chiefly to be found in the high seas. In St. Domingo, how- 
ever, and in the other islands of the American archipelago, 
the shells of the spirula are so common on certain coasts that 
the soil over which one walks is completely strewed with 
