162 
LECTURE XI. 
some of the latest writers, and even Lamark and 
Cuvier, were doubtihl ; or rather, gave into the no.^ 
tion of the shell being inhabited by an animal 
which was not its constructor. 
It now remains to describe, as shortly as pos- 
sible, the animal itself 5 and this will be best done 
by saying, that the species of Sepia or Cuttle-Fish 
which it most resembles is the Common Eight- 
Armed Cuttle-Fish, or Sepia Octopodia of Lin- 
naeus : the body is oval j the head furnished with 
a parrot-shaped beak, like that animal ; and the 
arms, which are eight in number, are of nearly 
equal length, each beset on its upper surface with 
two rows of suckers or fasteners as in the Cuttle- 
Fish, and each of the first or front arms is dilated 
on its inner side into a very large oval, semitrans- 
parent process or web, which the animal hold- 
ing in such a manner as to unite at the edges, 
they form a large sail-like concavity, which catch- 
ing the gale, enables it at pleasure to navigate the 
surface of the sea when calm. The spectacle, as 
before observed, has been described by various au- 
thors, but by none more elegantly than by Pliny, 
whose short and beautiful description has been 
generally quoted by modern writers. 
