17 



decapitated specimen was brought to Paris by M. M. Eobert and Leclan- 

 cher, which enabled M. De Blainville to declare, in addition to the observa- 

 tions of Lamarck, that the animal has a pair of terminal fins, and that the 

 branchial cavity contains only one pair of gills.* Another specimen was 

 brought home by Mr. Cranch, in the Congo Expedition, still more muti- 

 lated ; indeed, Mr. Gray informs us that it had only a fragment of the 

 mantle remaining attached to the shell, but sufficient to show that the micro- 

 scopic structure of the skin is similar to that of the Cuttle-fish. Nothing is 

 added to the foregoing account in the eleventh volume of M. Deshayes' edi- 

 tion of the ' Animaux sans vertebres ', recently published in Paris ; and it is, 

 therefore, with peculiar satisfaction that I am enabled, through the kindness 

 of Mr. Cuming, to present my readers with the description of a magnificent 

 specimen, now before me, perfect in all its parts except in the termination 

 of one of the tentacles ; and considerably larger than that found floating on 

 the sea by M. Peron, represented in the Encyclopedie Methodicuie. Mr. 

 Cuming's specimen, figured in plate A, was obtained about a twelvemonth 

 since in New Zealand by an intelligent traveller and lover of natural his- 

 tory, Mr. Percy Earl; he was standing one day on the beach at Port 

 Nicholson when the animal was washed ashore in Iris presence, and he im- 

 mediately secured it and put it in spirits. A notice of it was published 

 on its arrival by Mr. Gray in the ' Annals of Natural History", for April, 

 1845. 



This interesting little Cephalopod partakes in very slight degree of the 

 character of the proximate genera. It has the same number of arms as the 

 Argonaut, but there are two tentacles in addition as in the Cuttle-fish, about 

 five or six times the length of the arms, and terminated by a small rounded 

 indented club. The suckers are not arranged in a double row, as in the 

 Argonaut, but are sprinkled in a somewhat irregular manner over the 

 inner surface of the arms ; they are, moreover, exceedingly small, and have 

 more the appearance of a sprinkling of course sand. Like the Nautilus the 

 Spirula has a chambered siphonated shell, but instead of it being external 

 and serving as a protective shield to the soft parts, it is internal, imbedded 

 within the lower part of the mantle, and the siphon instead of passing 

 through the centre of the chambers, is on the inner side. It is somewhat 

 difficult, under these circumstances, to account for the shell being found 

 in such abundancet, whilst the animal has so long evaded the pursuit of 

 naturalists. The shell is not dependent on the attachment of a muscle as in 

 the Nautilus, nor on the prehensile embrace of a pair of arms as in the Argo- 

 naut ; the soft parts must apparently decompose before the shell can be 



* Annates francaises et etrangeres d'Anatomie et de Physiologie pomTaunee 1837, vol.1. p. 369. 



t Dr. Hooker, the enterprising Botanist of the Antarctic Expedition, informs me that at Paroah 

 Bay, New Zealand, he saw thousands of the Spirula shell scattered ou the shore; and M. Mmki: 

 describes it as being frequent on the coast of New Holland. 



