174 NATURAL HISTORY. 



arms were extended they would be forty-eight feet between their extremities, while two of the 

 shorter arms would measure thirteen feet from tip to tip. This specimen, although large, is but an 

 infant compared to some which have been seen around these shores. The Rev. Mr. Gabriel assures 

 me that in 1870 two Cuttles were cast ashore at Lamaline, their bodies measuring respectively 

 forty and forty-seven feet. Another gentleman here, whose testimony is thoroughly trustworthy, 

 tells me he measured the body of one which came ashore two years ago, and found it was eighty 

 feet in length. Never until now were Cuttles of such colossal dimensions seen in cold latitudes."* 



Four genera of ten-armed Calamaries have been described, founded on the fossil remains of their 

 shells met with in the Liassic and Oolitic formations. They comprise a dilated and spatulate form 

 of fossil pen, named Teudopsis by Deslongchamps, of which five fossil species have been described, 

 from the Lias of France and Germany. The gemis Beloteuthis, of Minister, has a horny lanceolate 

 pen, with a very broad shaft pointed at each end, and with small lateral wings. Of this genus six 

 species have been described, due probably to differences in age and sex. They are found in the Lias of 

 Wiirtemberg. 



The genus Geoteuthis (Miinster) has a broad pen, pointed behind; the shaft is wide and truncated 

 in front, the lateral wings are shorter than the shaft. Nine species of this extinct genus of Cala- 

 maries have been established on their fossil remains from the Lias of Wiirtemberg, Normandy, and 

 Lyme Regis, whilst several undescribed species occur in the Oxford Clay of Chippenham, Wilts. 



Besides the pens of this Calamary, the ink-bag, the muscular mantle, and the bases of the arms- 

 are preserved in the Oxford Clay. Some of the ink-bags found in the Lias of Lyme Regis are nearly 

 a foot in length, and are invested with a brilliant nacreous layer. They must have belonged to 

 Calamaries of gigantic size. It is difficult to understand how these ink-bags were preserved full, as 

 the recent Calamaries " spill their ink " on the slightest alarm. (Buckland.) 



" It is an oft-told anecdote that the late Dr. Buckland gave some of this fossil ink to Sir Francis 

 Chantrey, who pronounced it to be of unusually good quality, and with it made a drawing of the 

 specimen from which it was taken. This drawing was afterwards in the possession of the late Frank 

 Buckland. I have also seen a cake of fossil sepia prepared by Messrs. Newman for Professor Dick, 

 of Cambridge, about the year 1850 which rubs as smoothly and is as rich in colour as that manu- 

 factured from the ink of recent Cuttle-fishes." (Henry Lee.) 



Another fossil form is the genus Leptoteuthis of Von Meyer, from the Lithographic stone of 

 Solenhofen. The pen of this species is very broad, rounded in front, pointed behind, with obscure 

 diverging ribs. The beaks of some fossil forms are known, and also the hooklets of the arms of 

 probably a clawed form of Calamary from the Lias of Dorsetshire. Specimens of many of these 

 may be seen in the British Museum of Natural History. Wagner's genus, Acanthoteuthls, from the 

 Lithographic stone of Solenhofen, is founded on the fossil hooks of a Calamary. These show that 

 the animal had ten nearly equal arms, all furnished with a double series of horny claws throughout 



their entire length. 



FAMILY IV. BELEMXITIDJE. 



As there is no living representative of this family, we are obliged to base our description entirely 

 on its fossil remains. The fossil shells of this singular Cephalopod have long been known. Probably 

 few forms of extinct animal life have received more attention than the Belemnitet and its allies, a 

 group peculiar to the Secondary rocks. 



The earliest notices of this fossil date back to 1553, but their chief historians have been Dr. Buck- 

 land (1829-36), Owen (1844), Woodward (1851-6), and Huxley (1864). 



The part to which the name " Belemnite " is applied consists of the well-known sub-cylindrical 

 calcareous fossil, called by the quarry men and peasants "Thunderbolts," "St. Peter's Fingers," &c. 

 It is, in fact, only the "guard," or "rostrum," of the internal shell of a species of Squid, or Cuttle, 

 the lower end of which is more or less pointed and the upper is hollowed out, with a conical cavity 

 called the alveolus.^ Into this cavity is inserted a series of conical septa, or partitions, which, when 

 fossilised by the infiltration of carbonate of lime, leave behind a number of " meniscus-shaped " 

 casts of the chambers which present the appearance of a series of graduated watch-glasses, 



* "Annals and Mag. Nat. Hist.," 4th series, vol. xiii., p. 68. t From belemnon, Gr., a dart. 



J Lat., alveolus, a channel. 



