M. Deshayes* Monograph of Dentalium. I'Jb 



Encrinus Milleri. 



Habitat In profundis maris Caribsei, Gorgoniis adhaerens. 



Det nomen Dom. Miller, horum animalium investigator peritissirnus. 



Art. XIX. Anatomy and Monograph of the genus Denta- 

 lium. By M. G. P. Deshayes. ( Abstracted from a Me- 

 moir read before the tSociete d'Histoire Naturelle, March 18, 

 1825.*; 



At the commencement of those labours which have at length enlarged 

 themselves into the admirable memoir on the genus Dentalium, of which 

 we are about to offer an abstract, the object proposed to himself by M. 

 Deshayes was, to determine to which of the classes of the animal king- 

 dom it ought to be referred. Linne, as is well known, assigned to it a 

 situation among his Vermes Testacea, next to Patella, placing immedi- 

 ately after it the SerpultE. On the subsequent dismemberment of the 

 immense class Vermes of the great Swedish naturalist; of the genera 

 which in his system immediately preceded and followed Dentalium, the 

 one was included among the Mollusca, and the other among the Anne- 

 lida, of M. Lamarck. The genus Dentalium remained thus as it were 

 isolated, and it became questionable with which of these two classes it 

 ought to be associated. Lamarck himself, deceived probably by the 

 erroneous information furnished to him by M. Fleuriau de Belle Vue, 

 decided on including it among his Annelida ; and in this arrangement he 

 was supported by Cuvier, and by the whole of the modern naturalists. 

 With this location M. Deshayes was, however, unsatisfied. The mere 

 examination of the shell alone of Dentalium would have sufficed to shew 

 that it was perfectly symmetrical, while those of the Annelida are never 

 so. But the anatomical investigation of the animal, hitherto only known 

 by the very imperfect figure given by D'Argenville, has rendered it still 

 more evident that it can no longer remain in the situation assigned to it 

 by Lamarck. According to M. Deshayes it is evidently referrible to the 



* Quarto, pp. 58, plates iv, containing figures of all the species. 



