33 
OBSERVATIONS ON THE ANIMALS INHABITING 
MULTILOCULAR SHELLS, 
CHIEFLY WITH A VIEW TO THE GEOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. 
By D. T. Anstep, Esq., B.A. F.G.S. F.C.P.S. 
OF JESUS COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. 
Amonc the numerous forms of animal life with which the ocean 
abounds, there are few which an ordinary observer would be more 
likely to neglect, or even avoid with disgust, than the shapeless-look- 
ing masses called Cuttle-fish. These Cuttle-fish are to the geological 
naturalist among the most interesting inhabitants of the sea ; for they 
form a link between the past and the present, resembling in their 
organization those animals which must once have inhabited the 
numerous genera of extinct multilocular shells, of which Nautilus 
only remains: a necessary guide to point to those analogies, which, 
without it, could have been at the best mere gratuitous assumptions. 
The class of animals to which all these are referred is called Ce- 
phalopoda, from two Greek words* signifying their manner of loco- 
motion. This is very peculiar; for around the mouth extend a 
number of arms or feelers, which serve at once to take prey and 
convey it to the mouth, and also act as organs of locomotion: so that 
the feet, if we choose so to call these feelers, do actually proceed from 
the head, and the applicability of the name is at once seen. Now 
these cephalopodous molluses—for they belong to Lamarck’s class 
“ Moritusca”—are equally remarkable for the apparent simplicity 
and real complexity of their organization. Under a form resembling 
that of a simple Polype is hidden a rudimentary vertebral column, an 
approximate cranium, organs of digestion far more nearly resembling 
those of vertebrated than invertebrated animals, and, above all, a 
nervous system so highly developed that all the principal parts have 
acquired the form and situation which they preserve throughout the 
higher classes, up to man himself. 
To trace the changes of form in the habitation of these singular 
animals, and the probable changes of structure which caused them— 
to direct attention to the importance of the subject to the geologist— 
* xehuaran, a head, sous, a foot. 
VOL. IX., NO. XXV. 5 
