304 FUNCTIONS AND INSTINCTS. 



bearing arms seem to have their first outline in 

 the fresh water polypes; 1 indeed if the mouth 

 of the cuttle-fish with its suckers, be separated 

 from the head, leaving behind the long arms, 

 we see immediately an analogue of a radiary, 

 particularly of a star-fish, with its rays bearing 

 suckers below, and its central mouth. The 

 lamellated tentacles observed by Mr. Owen in 

 his work, before quoted, on the animal of the 

 Pearly Nautilus, 2 above and below the eyes, 

 seem to lead to the antennae of Crustaceans and 

 Insects, and numerous Molluscan characters are 

 obvious to every one. From these circumstances 

 it seems evident that the Creator has placed this 

 tribe in a station which leads to very different 

 and distant points in the animal kingdom, and 

 that there is scarcely any but what may re- 

 cognize in it one or more of its own peculiar 

 features yet at the same time it exhibits many 

 characters, both in its most extraordinary out- 

 ward form and in its internal organization, that 

 are quite peculiar and sui generis, of which no 

 animal at present known exhibits the slightest 

 traces. To mention only its muscular appara- 

 tus adapted to its unparalleled form ; its system 

 of circulation, carried on in the first Order by 

 three distinct organs instead of one heart ; and 

 the wonderful complication of its tentacles, of 



1 Hydra. 2 Nautilus Pompilius. 



