Miss Agnes Crane — Recent and Fossil Cephalopoda 499 



seem a more exalted conception to infer that, in these abandoned 

 t3'pes, we have the modified descendants of a few remotely antecedent 

 created types, than to maintain that, in common with the numberless 

 specific varieties, they were each individually created at successive 

 and constantly recurrent jDcriods, — for the fact that they made their 

 appearance on the earth at very different epochs of geological time, 

 is as indisputably proved as that of the orderly and successive pro- 

 gression from the Crustaceans and Molluscs to the Fishes, Eeptiles, 

 and Mammals. But I will not enter further upon the speculative con- 

 troversies as to the origin of the Cephalopoda. Scientific doubts and 

 perplexities, like all other intellectual difficulties, should be solved by 

 individual thought, the result in most cases being dependent on the 

 peculiar bias of the observer. In this necessarily imperfect sketch 

 of the annals of the Cephalopods, I have merely endeavoured to 

 place the evidence impartially before you. I wish, however, to be 

 understood as clearly distinguishing between what may be termed 

 " Eational Evolution," a phase of the doctrine based on legitimate 

 deductions from well-ascertained facts,, as widely separated alike 

 from " Advanced Darwinism " and dogmatic Materialism. The 

 investigation of the past history of any group of organisms 

 inevitably trenches on the theories of Evolution ; for, in the words 

 of one of the most popular exponents of palceontological science, 

 Dr. Alleyne Nicholson,^ " it is to that science, perhaps more than 

 BJij other, that we may look for the key to some most interesting and 

 important theoretical problems in biology." 



Note. — The writer regrets that she has only now had her atten- 

 tention called to a most interesting paper by Prof. Owen, entitled 

 " Observations upon the Camerated Structure in the Valves of the 

 Water-clam (Spondylus variits, Sow.)," which was originally printed 

 in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society for June, 1837, and 

 afterwards in the Magazine of Natural History, vol. ii. 1838, p. 407, 

 in which the author traces out the connexion between the mode of 

 growth in Nautilus and that of other molluscs which partition off a 

 portion of their shell not required for the convenience of the soft 

 parts of the animal inhabiting it. Although in this paper Professor 

 Owen speaks of the siphon of Nautilus as a means for converting the 

 deserted chambers of the shell into " a hydrostatic instrument sub- 

 servient to the locomotion of the animal," yet he clearly points out 

 that the septal divisions of the Nautilus-shell are analogous to the 

 septa of the " water spondylus " and many other shells which 

 partition off the dis-used portion of their houses both among uni- 

 valves and bivalves. 



Dr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., to whom Professor Owen showed 

 this paper a few days since, was, he informs me, until then, wholly 

 unaware of its publication, and only regrets that he did not discover 

 it when writing upon the subject of Camerated Shells, so as to have 

 given Professor Owen due credit for these views published so long 

 before his own. — A. C. 



' Recent Progress in Palaeontology, Geological Magazine, January, 1878; the 

 Inaugural Address to the Edinburgh Geological Society, November, 1877. 



