OF CUTTLE FISH. 87 



Lnhgo of Lam, and lie places the latter after the 

 Sepia. 



But the characters which he assigns to this family, 

 do not appear to me to harmonize with those of the 

 genus Sepia of Lamark, of which the body is oval, 

 short, sub-obtuse, furnished with tins throughout its 

 whole length ; sustained by a very distinct, thick, 

 sub-obtuse bone, which is sometimes armed with a 

 spine posteriorly, is hard and solid towards the 

 back, tender and cellular beneath, and is "composed 

 of calcareous, very thin, parallel lamina, connected 

 together by thousands of very small, hollow columns, 

 which are jierpendicidar to their surfaces, (Cuv. 

 Kegne Animal.) Are not these last characters suf- 



Jcient to distinguish and to separate entirely the 

 & enus Sepia from that of Loligo ? inasmuch as this 

 latter genus, on the contrary, has a body enclosed in 

 a sheath, which is long^ cylindrical, subulate, nar- 

 row, with the fins terminal, united or separate ; a 

 very thin, feeble bone, which is often narrow, trans- 

 parent, sometimes partially gelatinous^ this bone or 

 cartillage, which belongs also to the Sepiola, appears 

 to me to present a character which ought to approxi- 

 mate the Loligos to the Sepiola, as Mr. Cuvier has 

 done, (Regne Animal, t. 2, p. 361.) and which will 

 not admit of the interposition of the genus Sepia, as 

 in the arrangement of Dr. Leach. 



It may then be proper to establish a distinct family 

 for the reception of the genus Sepia, to be distin- 

 guished by the name given to it by Dr. Leach ; of 



