16 ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG I 



Nautilus and Spirula are both very rare animals, 

 but the progress of investigation brought to light 

 the singular fact, that, though each has the char- 

 acteristic cephalopodous organisation, it is very 

 different from the other. The shell of Nautilus is 

 external, that of Spirula internal; Nautilus has 

 four gills, Spirula two ; Nautilus has multitudinous 

 tentacles, Spirula has only ten arms beset with 

 horny-rimmed suckers; Spirula, like the squids 

 and cuttlefishes, which it closely resembles, has a 

 bag of ink which it squirts out to cover its retreat 

 when alarmed ; Nautilus has none. 



No amount of physiological reasoning could 

 enable any one to say whether the animal which 

 fabricated the Belemnite was more like Nautilus, 

 or more like Spirula. But the accidental dis- 

 covery of Belemnites in due connection with black 

 elongated masses which were certainly fossilised 

 ink-bags, inasmuch as the ink could be ground up 

 and used for painting as well as if it were recent 

 sepia, settled the question ; and it became perfectly 

 safe to prophesy that the creature which fabricated 

 the Belemnite was a two-gilled cephalopod with 

 suckers on its arms, and with all the other essen- 

 tial features of our living squids, cuttlefishes, and 

 Spiruloe. The palaeontologist was, by this time, 

 able to speak as confidently about the animal of the 

 Belemnite, as Zadig was respecting the queen's 

 spaniel. He could give a very fair description 

 of its external appearance, and even enter pretty 



