CEPHALOPODA 91 



and longer than the wings, and is truncated posteriorly. It 

 has a nacreous lining, and is usually accompanied by a large 

 and well-preserved ink-bag (fig. 22, 4). These were called 

 Belemnosepia by Agassiz and Buckland, who supposed them 

 to belong to the same animal with the Belemnite. They have 

 also been called Loligo-scpice and Loliginitcs; but the name 

 Geoteuthis, given by Count Miinster, appears less objection- 

 able. One species (Mastigo'pliora brevi2nnnis*) is of frequent 

 occurrence in the Oxford clay near Chippenham, which 

 retains not only the horny (chitinous) pen and ink-bag, but 

 also the muscular mantle, the rhombic terminal fins, and at 

 least the bases of the arms, with the minute hooks, and traces 

 of the mandibles. Horny claws, like those of the uncinated 

 Calamary (Onychoteuthis), have been observed arranged in 

 double series in the lias of Watchett, and they sometimes 

 occur in great numbers in the coprolitic remains of the Enalio- 

 sauri. The most remarkable examples of this kind are pre- 

 served in the lithographic limestones of Solenhofen, and show 

 that the extinct Calamary had ten nearly equal arms, the 

 tentacles, in their retracted condition, being undistinguish- 

 able from the rest — each furnished with 20 to 30 pairs of 

 formidable hooks. What further evidence was needed 

 respecting the nature of this creature has been supplied by 

 the Chippenham fossils, which in all probability are iden- 

 tical in genus, if not in species, with the Acanthoteuthis 

 described by Miinster. One of these extraordinary fossils — 

 the mummy of a cuttle-fish more ancient than the chalk for- 

 mation and the upper oolites — is represented in (fig. 22, 2,) 

 reduced to one-sixth from the original in the British Museum. 

 Nine of the arms are preserved, the sclerotic plates of the 

 eyes, the bases of the large lateral fins, the small ink-bag, and 

 the conical shell. This shell, which is chambered internally, 



* Catalogue of Fossil In vertebral a, in the Museum of the College of 

 Surgeons, London, lto, 1856, p. 1. 



