942 Analysis oj Ike Labours of the Royal Academy 



pents in the environs of the Cape of Good Hope ; and govern- 

 ment have already taken into consideration the means of trans- 

 porting that useful species of animal to Martinique*. 



M. Cuvier has finished by a memoir Sur le Poulpe, le Seiche, 

 et le Calmar, the work which he undertook a long time since 

 upon the anatomy of the molltiscce. The genera which have 

 l^een now mentioned are the most remarkable in this numerous 

 class of animals for complication and singularity of structure. 

 Provided with three hearts, with a nervous system very developed, 

 with large eyes as well formed as those of any vertebral animal, 

 with excretory viscera formed on a plan of which Nature offers 

 no other example — -they merit every attention from naturalists. 



In making these anatomical researches M. Cuvier has had 

 occasion to discover the nature of a fossil common enough in 

 calcareous beds, and which has hitherto been quite an aenigma 

 to geologists. It is a bony fragment, concave on one side and 

 convex on the other, with a border radiated, and a ridge (epine) 

 between the convexity and the border. It is now demonstrated 

 that this is the inferior extremity of a bone of the seiche (Se- 

 pia L.) ; and if there is any thing to be astonished at, it is, that a 

 resemblance so eviderit has not been sooner discovered. 



The fresh waters of some cantons in the south of France pro- 

 duce a very small shell-fish, similar to a buckler surmounted with 

 a goad pointed and curved. It has been generally believed to 

 be an univalve, and has been called I'ancyle epine de rose ; but 

 M. Marcel de Serres has ascertained that it is one of the valves 

 of a regular bivalvular shell, the hinge of which has certain pe- 

 culiar characteristics. He has in consequence formed a new 

 genus of it, which he has named acantkis. The animal of this 

 shell has not yet been observed. 



The animals without vertebrae, considered in general in regard 

 to the classification and gnurneration of the species, form the 

 subject of a large work, of which M. de Lamarck has published 

 the three first volumes, commencing with the microscopic ani- 

 mals, and extending to the tribe of insects. In treating of the 

 Tnoliuscce, he introduces a new class which he calls tuniciers^ 

 formed of those composite moUiisccB of which M. Savigny has 

 given so singular a history, as also of those simple molluscce 

 which are analogous to those which enter into the formation of 

 the composites. 



To the history of corals a valuable addition has been made by 

 a work of M. Lamouroux, on those species the solid part of 

 which is flexible. 



One of the most interesting questions in physiology regards 



* See some further notice of the communication of M. Jonnes, in Phii. 

 Mag. for Tcbruary last. 



the 



