HISTORICAL SURVEY. 737 



was opened by the works of Professors von Jhering' (1877 — 1881), and Lankester and 

 Bourne = (1883). 



It is a point of literary interest to note that there is some evidence, which was 

 discussed at length by Owen in his celebrated memoir, tending to show that the 

 mollusc which inhabits the shell of the Pearly Nautilus was known to the father of 

 natural history. However this may be, it is certain that since the revival of learning, 

 Nimtilus has on two occasions, separated from one another by an interval of a hundred 

 and twenty years, been the subject of an important zoological discovery. The first of 

 these was made by a Dutch physician and botanist, resident in the East Indies, named 

 George Everard Rumph, usually known as Rumphius, the author of a large work 

 entitled D'Amhoinsche Rariteitkamer, which was published in folio in Amsterdam in 

 1705, and was translated into German sixty j'ears later. In this volume appeared the 

 first recognisable descrijition and illustration of Kmitilus pompilius, this fact constituting, 

 I believe, one of his principal titles to enduring distinction as a zoologist. 



Rumphius described some of the external characters of Nautilus with considerable 

 accuracy, recognising it as a Cejjhalojsod Mollusc allied to the calamaries, cuttle-fishes 

 and octopuses, but his statements lacked confirmation and amplification and consequently 

 had no marked effect on classification. Cuvier [Regne Animal, ill. p. 366, quoted by 

 Owen] dismissed his figure of jVautilus with the epithet " indechiffrable," but Keferstein 

 [Nachr. Ges. Gottingen, 1865, p. 356] was more generous, saying, " Oken allein scheint 

 mir diese recht gute Beschreibung und Abbildung angemessen gedeutet zu haben." 



The works of Rumphius ^ ovei-shadowed b}- those of Linnaeus, became practically 

 forgotten, and so it happened that the capture of a unique specimen in the year 1829 

 by Dr George Bennett off the island of Erromanga in the New Hebrides, followed 

 by its successful transmission to Europe, had all the merit of an original discovery*. 

 In his book entitled Gatherings of a Naturalist in Australasia, Bennett tells us that 

 his attention had been directed to the subject of Nautilus and its relation to Ammonites 

 and Belemnites after a chance conversation with Professor Owen. 



In the evening of August 2-ith, 1829, while at anchor in Dillon Bay, Erromanga, 

 he "observed an object floating upon the water, resembling a dead tortoiseshell cat. 

 So unexpected a sight," he says, "excited my curiosity, and the boat. ..was immediately... 

 sent to ascertain the nature of this floating object. It was found to be the Pearly 



Nautilus On being brought on board, I observed it retract the tentacles or feelers 



still closer than before; and this, with a slight quivering of the body, was the only 

 sign of vitality it gave." This specimen was therefore clearly in a moribund condition 



' Jhering, H. von, Vergleichende Anatomie tics Nerveiisystems und Phylogenie der MoUusken, Leipzig, 1877 ; 

 " Ueber die Verwandtschaftsbeziehungen der Ceplialopoden." Zeitschi: wiss. Zool., Bd. xxxv. pp. 1 — 22, ISSl. 



- Lankester, E. E., and Bourne, A. G., "On the existence of Spengel's olfactory organ and of paired 

 genital ducts in the Pearly Saiititus." Quart. J. Micr. Sc. xxiii. pp. 310—318, 4 figg. 1883. Other figures 

 were published in the same year in Professor Lankester's article " Mollusca," I\ncycl. Brit., '.tth ed., and 

 reissued in his Zoological Articles contributed to the Encyclopaedia Britanuica, 1891. 



' In addition to the Rariteitkamer, he wrote the Herbarium .imboinense which was edited and published 

 after his death by J. Burmann, Amsterdam, 1741 — 1755. 



* Bennett, G., "The inhabitant of the Pearly Nautilus." London Medical Gazette, viii. p. 729, 1831; 

 also by the same author, Gatheririgs of a Naturalist in Australasia; London, 1860, pp. 374 et seq. 



