284 ANIMALS INHABITING MULTILOCULAR SHELLS. 
Such is a slight apergue of two great families of multilocular 
shells, the Nautilacea and Ammoneata. Each genus has been con- 
sidered, both separately and in connection with the others; and it 
has been endeavoured al] along to direct attention to general views, 
rather than to attempt a minute and technical description of any 
portion which might seem more peculiarly interesting. It would 
have been easy to enlarge on the mechanical contrivances in Am- 
monites, and on the physiology of those animals alluded to of which 
we have knowledge ; but these matters have been already ably dis- 
eussed, and my object was different. I wished to communicate in- 
formation, correct, and not too technical, on a very important subject, 
and to show how far generalization had gone, and to what extent 
the field was still open: My own ideas are, perhaps, merely fancies, 
but, such as they are, I let them go forth, trusting that others better 
able to theorize may also be induced to express their opinions. I 
now leave this part of my essay, and proceed to the consideration of 
another family of Cephalopods, called by D’Orbigny “ Peristellata” 
but by Professors Agassiz and Buckland, with more propriety and 
meaning, “ Belemno-sepia.” This latter name has been given since 
the discovery of a portion of the animal approximating it very nearly 
to other sepia, from which, however, it differs in the feasuves, or dart- 
shape of the stony skeleton, which has long, for that reason, been de- 
nominated Belemnite: 
