148 PICTURESQUE SKETCHES 



are all preserved in connexion with the belemnitic 

 shell, while one specimen exhibits the large eyes and 

 the funnel of the animal, and the remains of two 

 fins, in addition to the shell and the ink-bag. We 

 are thus furnished with distinct proof of the true 

 nature and analogies of this singular creature, and we 

 learn from ocular evidence that it combined the cha- 

 racters at present divided between three distinct 

 genera. It possessed a calcareous, internal, cham- 

 bered shell, like the Sepia ; it was provided with a 

 formidable apparatus of hooks upon the arms, charac- 

 teristic of the modern genus Onychoteuthis (the most 

 powerful and rapacious of the cuttle-fish tribe, and 

 the one provided with the most singularly powerful 

 and complicated contrivances to ensure the destruc- 

 tion of its prey) ; and, thirdly, it had the peculiar at- 

 tachment of the fins, in a position a little in advance 

 of the middle of the body, seen in the Sepiola. 



The belemnite, having the advantage of a dense 

 but well-balanced internal shell, must have exercised 

 the power of swimming backwards and forwards with 

 great vigour and precision. Its position no doubt was 

 generally vertical ; it would rise swiftly and stealthily 

 to fix its claws in the belly of a fish, and then perhaps 

 as swiftly dart down to the bottom and devour it. 

 On the approach of danger, it could suddenly shoot 

 out its black inky fluid, and hide itself from an 

 enemy; and whether we consider the large dimensions 

 it attained, its muscular energy, its singular contri- 

 vance of hooks in connexion with powerful suckers, 

 its powers of locomotion or its facility of concealment, 

 it must have been the most formidable and preda- 

 ceous animal of its class, and has probably never 



