PEOP. OWEN ON NEW AND EAEE CEPHALOPODA. 147 



" Mr. Banks also, about this time, found a large cuttle-fish, which had just been killed 

 by the birds, floating in a mangled condition upon the water ; it was very different from the 

 cuttle-fishes that are found in the European seas ; for the arms, instead of suckers, were 

 furnished with a double row of very sharp talons, which resembled those of a cat, and 

 like them, were retractable into a sheath of skin, from which they might be thrust at 

 pleasure. Of this cuttle-fish we made one of the best soups we had ever tasted " ^. 



The grounds on which 1 formed a personal acquaintance with such debris of this 

 remarkable Cephalopod as might have remained, after it had furnished Lieut. Cook and 

 his scientific fellow- voyagers, Banks and Solander, with a welcome change of diet, are 

 the following : — 



When preparing, in 1829, my first ' Catalogue of the Hunterian Museum. '2, being 

 struck with the number of marine oceanic Invertebrata, dissected and undissected 

 {Salpce, nos. 119 d, 120, 121-128; Pyrosoma, no. 119 c; Janthina, nos. 154, 155; 

 jBoUenia, no. 119), which Hunter had obtained, I was informed by Mr. Clift that his 

 Master had supplied Mr. (afterwards Sir Joseph) Banks with wide-mouthed stoppered 

 bottles, containing alcohol, for the preservation of such marine animals in a state fit for 

 dissection, as might be captured in the circumnavigatory voyage about to be under- 

 taken by Lieut. Cook. Some of Hunter's bottles containing the above specimens bore 

 a label, J. B., as noted in the ' Catalogue.' It was probable, therefore, that Sir Joseph 

 Banks might have stowed viscera and other portions of the great Hook-armed Cuttle 

 in one of the bottles for his anatomical friend. 



In preparing the second Catalogue of the series of dissected specimens I came upon 

 the following parts of such a Cephalopod : — 



Portions of the arms (PI. XXXII. figs. 1, 2, & 3) ^ ; a beak with the tongue, radule, and 

 surrounding lips (PI. XXXI. fig. 1) * ; a systemic heart-ventricle (PI. XXXII. fig. 6) ' ; 

 and, among the " Dry Preparations " was the terminal part of the body with an attached 

 pair of rhomboidal fins of a Cephalopod (then No. " 1436," now "E. 1066") answering 

 in size to the above specimens in spirits (PL XXXI. figs. 2-4, reduced). 



The heart, or part of that complex circulating apparatus in Cephalopoda, difi'ered 

 moreover in shape from the systemic ventricle in Octopoda and Sepiadse ; and I found 

 the nearest approach to it, in form, in a small kind of Squid which had hooks upon the 

 expanded ends of the tentacles '', 



' Torn. cit. p. 70. 



^ ' Catalogiie of the Contents of tie Mnseum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons in London. Fasciculus I., com- 

 prehending the Pi rst Division of the Preparations of Natural History in Spirit (Vec/etabilia and Animalia 

 evertebrata)' , 4to, 1S30, p. 33. 



= Op. cit. p. 33. 



* ' Descriptive and Illustrated Catalogue of the Physiological Series of Comparative Anatomy in the Museum 

 of the Eoyal College of Surgeons in London,' vol. i. 4to, 1832, p. 15, no. 63 ; 2nd ed., 8vo, 1852, p. 15, no. 63. 



= Ihid. vol. ii. 4to, 1833, p. 84, no. 308 ; 2nd ed., 8vo, 1852, p. 84, no. 308. 



" Descr. and lU. Cat. vol. ii. no. 902 a, p. 35 ; and no. 166 n, Nat.-Hist.-Series Cat. id supra, p. 33. 



YOL. XI. — PART V. No. 8. — June, 1881. 2 b 



