Zoology.-] NATURAL HISTORY OF VICTORIA. [Mollusca. 



about the middle, and rather more rapidly tapering to the posterior point; the inflexion 

 forming- the medial keel 3 lines wide ; greatest width of pen 2 inches. 



Cups with slender peduncles, horny margins, with very numerous, close, acute 

 teeth, all whitish; the cups on the clubbed part of tentacular arms in four rows at 

 the middle and three rows towards the end ; on eight sessile arms in two rows ; on 

 the seven salient angles of the buccal membrane varying from 3 to 5 small cups in 

 one or two rows. 



Tentacular arms with a broad thin membranous band 5 lines wide, extending 

 about 2J inches from the base, and having a thicker, narrower web on compressed 

 keel on back of cupped expansion, and one on each side of the rows of cups. 



External ears with prominent fleshy crests. Beaks black. 



Reference. — Quoy and Gaimard, Voy. Astrol. Zool. ii. 77, t. 4, f. 1. 



The enormous eyes of this Cuttlefish (as big as those of a calf 

 in the specimen figured) roll about in their sockets in a way so 

 suggestive of a vertebrate animal of the higher types, and give 

 such an air of bright, energetic intelligence and activity to this 

 fierce, predaceous creature, that it is difficult for an observer, 

 unacquainted with its structure, to realise the fact of its belonging 

 to so lowly a division of the animal kingdom as the Mollusca. It 

 is one of the rarer Cuttlefishes of our Bay, the specimen described 

 and figured having been obtained during the submarine blasting 

 operations for removing rocks from the channels within the Heads, 

 near Queenscliff. The anterior end of the internal pen or shell is 

 more angular, and the widening behind is more gradual or less 

 abrupt, than in Quoy and Gaimard's outline ; the whole substance 

 of the pen is thin and flexible, without thickening at the edges, and 

 even the keel or midrib is only an inflexion, rounded on one face 

 and hollow on the other. 



Locality. — Not uncommon in Port Phillip Bay. 



Explanation of Figures. 



Plate 76. — Fig. 1, view of under-side, reduced to one-third the natural size, showing the 

 funnel, mouth, and buccal membrane. Fig. la, side view of funnel, showing internal valve, 

 suspensary ligaments, and one of the lateral cartilaginous buttons for supporting the edge of the 

 mantle, Fig. \b, internal dorsal pen, one-half the natural size (posterior end up). 



Plate 77. — Fig. 1, dorsal view, one-third the natural size. Fig. la, buccal membrane, one- 

 half the natural size, showing the beaks in the middle, and the irregular clusters of small 

 suckers at angles. Fig. 16, side view of end of one of the long tentacular arms, natural size, 

 showing the toothed and pedunculate cups, and the dorsal and lateral fins or crests. 



Frederick McCoy. 



[28] 



