THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HLSTORY 



No. 44. JUNE 1841. 



XXIX. — 77«e^«a^om?/o/'Nautilus. By M.Valenciennes*. 



Bauon von Humboldt gave the Academy an account of 

 the examination of the animal of Nautilus Pompi/ius, the third 

 animal of this species which has been seen by naturahsts, 

 which has been made by M. Valenciennes in Paris, and by 

 whom it had been communicated to him in a letter. " M. 

 Meder, a merchant in Java," says M. Valenciennes, " has sent 

 me the animal of the Nautilus Pompilius, already described 

 by Owen, wiiich was fished up between Timor and New 

 Guinea. I think that the drawings which I have made of 

 this animal will be somew hat more distinct than those by Mr. 

 Owen. I have discovered an organ which had escaped the 

 celebrated English anatomist, namely, a conical hollow tube 

 clothed with papillae, which contains in its interior a folded 

 membrane, having the greatest resemblance to that in the 

 nostrils of Fishes ; I do not doubt, therefore, that it is an organ 

 of smell. Mr. Owen supposed this organ to be in another 

 place, at the base of the inner tentacula ; yet it must have 

 quite another destination, since there are also two other en- 

 tirely similar organs at the base of the outer tentacula, which 

 Mr. Owen has not seenf- I am inclined to consider them as 

 membranes which belong to the organ of taste. I was not 

 able to find any inward ear, nor could I discover any cephalic 



• From Reports of the Royal Academy of Berlin for Jan. 28, 1841. 



\ [They are described as follows in Mr. Owen's Memoir on the Pearly 

 Nautilns : " Although the external confignration of the oral sheath is thus 

 varied, its internal surface is uniform and smooth, except at the lower part 

 near the anterior margin, where there are two clusters of soft conical pa- 

 pillie, and on each side uf these a (jroiip of lamincB disposed loigiludiiially." 

 (p. 14.) The oral sheath is formed by the confluence of the bases of tlie outer 

 tentacula : the single group of lamina^ at the base of tiie inner tentacula was 

 conjectured by Mr. Owen to be the analogue of the lamellated olfactoi-y or- 

 gan in fish, on account of its rich supply of nerves and its position imme- 

 diately anterior to the mouth. The organs conjectured to be those of smell 

 by M. Valenciennes are two hollow tentacula, situated on the outside of the 

 head, one beneath each eye ; there is a remnant of one of these tentacula 

 beneath the remaining eye in the wounded, and, at this part, mutilated spe- 

 cimen, described by Mr. Owen. — Ed.] 



Ann. fif May. 'N. Hist. Vol. vii. R 



