Dr. Mantell on the Structure of the Belemnite. 15 



in the above extract from the extraordinary article misnamed 

 " The Progress of Comparative Anatomy," would not have pro- 

 voked one line from my pen, but for the assertion that " the 

 essential character of a Belemnite is the phragmocone." As the 

 advancement of our knowledge of the organization of the extinct 

 forms of Cephalopods would be seriously impeded were a state- 

 ment so erroneous, and emanating from such high authority, to 

 remain uncontradicted, I beg the favour of being permitted to 

 lay before your readers a concise illustration of such parts of the 

 structure of those two distinct types of the highest order of Mol- 

 lusca — the Belemnite and Belemnoteuthis — which were blended 

 together to form the supposed animal of the Belemnite in the 

 memoir above referred to. 



The accompanying sketches represent certain fossils from the 

 Oxford clay of Wiltshire, in which the distinctive characters of 

 the two genera are clearly exemplified : the original specimens 

 were examined by many of the eminent foreign naturalists who 

 were attracted to London last summer by the Great Exhibition, 

 and not one of those competent observers dissented from the 

 opinions expressed in niy communications on this subject to the 

 Royal Society, and published in the ' Philos. Trans.' for 1848 and 

 1850; my statement being merely confirmatory of the original 

 views enunciated by Messrs. Pearce, Cunnington, Charles- 

 worth, &c. 



I am most anxious, as I have ever been, to abstain from any 

 comments that may lead to controversy, and I therefore restrict 

 myself to a simple description of the specimens, of which figs. 1 

 and 3 are representations on a reduced scale : the originals in 

 my possession may be seen by any naturalist interested in the 

 inquiry : those in the British Museum are now admirably ar- 

 ranged by the able curator Mr. Woodward*. It is however 

 necessary to state most emphatically, that the essential character 

 of a Belemnite consists, not, as the reviewer affirms, in the pos- 

 session of a " phragmocone " or conical chambered siphunculated 

 shell, which is common to numerous genera of Cephalopods, but 

 of an osselet of a peculiar form and structure which invested the 

 phragmocone, and extended distally beyond the chambered shell 

 in a solid rostrum or guard. It is this mineralized rostrum 

 which was called Belemnite, thunderbolt, or dart-stone, by the 

 early naturalists. 



* See my ' Hand-book to the Galleiy of Organic Remains in the Bri- 

 tish Museum.' The characters of the fossil Cephalopods are succinctly 

 and clearly pointed out in Mr. Woodward's excellent ' Manual of the Mol- 

 lusca.' 



