CUTTLE-PISHES. 307 



history would be important, from its exhibiting points 

 of union between these subdivisions of the animal king- 

 dom. In fact, while all their salient characters are those 

 of Molluscous animals, and some of them are furnished 

 with shells formed like those of other Mollusca, there 

 are evident traces of an internal skeleton, which, in the 

 manner in which it is evolved and nourished, is exactly 

 analogous to the skeleton of a Vertebrate, in what may 

 be supposed its most rudimentary form. The prin- 

 cipal mass of nervous matter, or, as we may call it, 

 the brain, is lodged in an obvious skull : the eyes are 

 of a type of structure much more perfect than in any 

 other Mollusc, and approaching closely to the complex 

 structure of this organ in Vertebrates ; it has a set 

 of olfactory nerves, and a well-formed ear ; and the 

 nerve of taste is well developed, if we may judge by the 

 vascular character and mobility of the tongue. In 

 all that constitutes the life of the animal, in his in- 

 ternal organs, his senses, and his intelligence, the Cuttle- 

 fish, therefore, approaches very closely to a Vertebrate. 

 Yet this creature has a body unlike anything we are 

 accustomed to meet with among the higher animals, 

 and whose similitude we must seek at the very base of 

 the animal kingdom, among the Polypes themselves. 

 In those lowly-organized creatures we found a bag- 

 like body, with a mouth at one end, surrounded by a 

 number of long arms, or tentacles, spreading round it 

 in the form of a star. Here we again meet with the 

 same type, or general idea, but in a state of advance- 

 ment perhaps the greatest that such a type of organi- 

 zation admits of: instead of being minute gelatinous 



