ON THE METHOD OF ZADIG-. 149 



eembles, has a bag of ink which it squirts out to cover 

 its retreat when alarmed ; Nautilus has none. 



No amount of physiological reasoning could enable 

 any one to say whether the animal which fabricated the 

 Belemnite was more like Nautilus, or more like Spirula. 

 But the accidental discovery of Belemnites in due con- 

 nection with black elongated masses which were cer- 

 tainly fossilised ink-bags, inasmuch as the ink could be 

 ground up and used for painting as well as if it were 

 recent sepia, settled the question; and it became per- 

 fectly safe to prophesy that the creature which fabricated 

 the Belemnite was a two-gilled cephalopod with suckers 

 on its arms, and with all the other essential features 

 of our living squids, cuttle-fishes, and Spirulce. The 

 palaeontologist was, by this time, able to speak as confi- 

 dently about the animal of the Belemnite, as Zadig 

 was respecting the queen's spaniel. lie could give a 

 very fair description of its external appearance, and even 

 enter pretty fully into the details of its internal organi- 

 sation, and yet could declare that neither he, nor any 

 one else, had ever seen one. And as the queen's spaniel 

 was found, so happily has the animal of the Belemnite ; 

 a few exceptionally preserved specimens having been 

 discovered, which completely verify the retrospective 

 prophecy of those who interpreted the facts of the case 

 by due application of the method of Zadig. 



These Belemnites nourished in prodigious abundance 

 in the seas of the mesozoic or secondary age of the 

 world's geological history; but no trace of them has 



