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 and ifto^ojjg : 



A PLAINLY WORDED BIOLOGICAL QUARTERLY. 



Vol. II. No. 6. OCTOBER, 1895. 



SPIEULA PEKONII, Lam. 



BY ERNEST H. L. SCHWARZ, A.R.C.S. 



From the Geological Research Laboratory, Royal College of Science. 



EVERY one who takes an interest in shells is familiar with the 

 little " Post-horns," as the shells of Spirula have been named ; 

 they are found in vast quantities on most of the shores of the 

 Southern Seas, some even, as Mr. Hornell tells me, finding their way 

 to the shores of Jersey, while in France they are reported from 

 La Rochelle and the bay of Gascony ; but the animal is known from 

 only a very few imperfect specimens. We have here the case of a 

 deep-sea animal, living, we know not where, in countless thousands, 

 casting its shells over the entire world, in most cases far from its 

 natural habitat : and supposing these shores in the future ages to 

 become covered with sediment, it might, with apparent justice, be 

 inferred that the animal had a world-wide distribution, which is not 

 the case : and we actually do find similarly constituted shells, the 

 Ammonites and the Nautili, massed together in bands in various 

 strata, and wherever we find beds of an equivalent age, no matter 

 whether they are as distant as the poles, we find, species for species, 

 the same fauna, and our little Spirula gives us a clue as to how this 

 has come about (1) . 



So long ago as 1705, Rumphius (2) gave an account of the living 

 Spirula, but the first clear description of the animal was by 

 Lamarck^ 3 ) (who gave it the specific name of Peronii) and Peron( 4 ) ; 

 these two established the fact that the arms bore suckers, while 

 de Blainville( 5) pointed out that it belonged to the class Decapoda 

 a deduction which was confirmed by Gray( 6 ) and Lovell ReeveCO from 



(1). Wurtenburger, Stuclicn ueber Stammes Oeschichte der Ammonit., Leipzig, 

 1880 ; also Lindstrom, Konigl. Svenska Vetenskaps Akacl. Handlin., No. 12, p. i, 1888. 



(2) 

 (3) 

 (4) 

 (5) 

 (6) 

 (V) 



D' Amboinische Rariteit-Kamer, p. 68 ; translation by Midler, Vienna, 1765. 



Encyclopedic Metliodigue, pi. 465, fig. 5 ; Mem. Soc. d'Hist. Nat., 1799. 



Atlas du Voyage aux Terrcs Australes, tab. xxx, fig. 4. 



Annal. Francaiscs et Etrangeres d'Anat. et de Phys., vol. 1, p. 369, 1837. 



Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. xv, p. 257. 



Elements of Conchology, p. 16. 



