CEPHALOPODA. 23 
Genus \st. Brvosepta.* Voltz. 1830. 
Sepia. Cuvier; Férussac ; @ Orbigny ; Deshayes. 
BELoOsEPIA. Bronn. 
Animal unknown; but, from the affinities between its calcareous remains and the 
internal shell of the recent Sepia, supposed to have more nearly resembled that genus 
than any other existing Cephalopod, and may be thus described : 3 
Body oblong, (?) naked, supporting two lateral fins extending its whole length ; 
mouth terminal, furnished with two corneous mandibles, and surrounded by ten 
prehensile acetabuliferous arms, of which two were longer than the others ; mantle 
free at the anterior margin ; dranchie two. 
Shell internal, oblong, semiconical, coarsely granulated or sulcated on the exterior, 
internally smooth, containing a series of transverse laminz, perforated near their ventral 
margins by large elliptical, sub-siphoniform openings, and terminating in a solid beak 
or rostrum, inflected towards the dorsal aspect, and expanded at the anterior extremity 
on the dorsal aspect into an elevated callus, and on the ventral aspect into a semi- 
circular plate bent outwards over the base of the rostrum; the ventral margins 
of the laminz converging towards the anterior extremity of the rostrum, and connected 
by a thin calcareous plate. 
Testa interna, oblonga, semiconicd, externe granulatd, interne levigatd ; septa trans- 
versa, foraminibus ventralibus ellipticis subsiphonoidis perforata, continenti, et rostro solido, 
antice, parte dorsali in callum proeminentem, parte ventrali in laminam supra rostrum 
reflexam dilatato, posticé sursum inflexo, terminatd ; septorum marginibus ventralibus ad 
basim rostri convergentibus et tenui lamind connexis. 
The remains of this extinct Cephalopod have been long known as of frequent 
occurrence in the Paris bas; they were noticed by Guettardt and were described by 
him as the fossil teeth of sharks. They were also figured by Burtin,{ and by him 
were considered to be internal bones of a fish’s head. To Cuvier paleontology is 
indebted for pointing out their true character. In a short notice published in 1824, in 
the ‘ Annales des Sciences Naturelles,’ that illustrious naturalist referred the remains 
in question to a cephalopodous mollusc closely allied to the recent Sepia; and, in fact, 
they, as well as the remains of another extinct Cephalopod which exhibited an 
unquestionably camerated and siphoniferous structure, and for the reception of which 
the genus Beloptera had been established by M. Deshayes, were placed by M. d’Orbigny 
in that genus. M. de Blainville also in the first instance described them as the remains 
of a Sepia; but afterwards, when he adopted the genus Beloptera for the Sepia 
* Etym. Bedos, telum ; Xnzia, sepia. 
+ Mémoires sur différentes parties des Sciences et Arts, 1783, Septitme Mémoire, pl. 2, figs. 29-30. 
t Oryctyographie de Bruxelles (1784), pl. 2, fig. A. 
