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tn 
OV 
CEA PALER: Oy: 
UNITY OF COMPOSITION. 
THE cephalopods are especially remarkable for the position of 
their long members. It is to this peculiarity, as we have said, 
that they owe their name. Those which have eight tentacles are 
called octopods,; if they possess ten, decapods. The strange and 
unique position of the arms of these creatures, and the peculiar 
mode of their progression, has ever invested them in the eyes of 
naturalists with a great interest. Apparent anomalies are always 
subjects of much curiosity; but the more carefully they are 
studied, instead of revealing the vagaries of Nature, and showing 
any disposition to depart from her own arrangements, the observer 
can only discover further and further confirmation of the great 
laws which so inexorably govern the arrangements of the animal 
economy. A close study soon resolves what at first appeared an 
anomaly into a pleasing and new example of a different mode 
of applying the great types on which the organism of life is 
constructed. 
Thirty years ago, two ingenious observers—MM. Laurencet 
and Meyranx—studied the plan of the arrangement of the viscera 
of the cephalopods. Their observations led them to conclude 
that these mollusks were constructed upon the same plan as 
the vertebrates, and were folded double, bringing their hands 
and feet together, just as the acrobats, who contort their supple 
bodies, and walk on their hands, their head being between their 
legs. Geoffroy St. Hilaire immediately adopted the idea, announced 
in an elaborate report upon the subject, that the cephalopods 
exemplified the very truth he had so long advocated, namely, 
the unity of organic structure. This was diametrically opposed 
to the opinion which the eminent naturalist, Cuvier, held; and, 
perhaps with something more than vehemence, he controverted 
the assertions and conclusions of his learned friend. The Academy 
