THE SHELL-FISH OF THE COAST. 



it may be, is next to the backboned or vertebrate 

 animals — the fishes, reptiles, birds, and quadru- 

 peds — about the most complex, or, if you choose, 

 most highly organized, of the entire animal series. 

 It takes precedence over the star-fish, insect, crab, 

 and lobster, and, among its own class, over the 

 snail, clam, and oyster. It alone among the thou- 

 sands — nay, hundreds of thousands — of invertebrate 

 animals, or those lacking a backbone, possesses a 

 distinct covering or capsule to its principal nerve- 

 mass, the brain, thus foreshadowing the structure 

 which is so distinctive a feature of all the higher 

 animals. The skull 

 of the cuttle-fish has 

 not yet, however, 

 been converted into 

 bone, but remains in a 

 cartilaginous condi- 

 tion, recalling in great 

 measure the condi- 

 tion of the skull in 

 some of the lower 

 fishes, the sharks 

 and rays and stur- 

 geon, for example. 

 Again, we note a 

 special development 

 of the sense organs. The great round eyes that 

 are situated on either side of the head have a per- 

 fection but little inferior to that of the eyes of the 

 highest animals, and are provided, although in a 

 somewhat ditFerent order of arrangement, with the 



Egg-cases of Loligo (' Sea-geape'). 



