248 ON THE CLASSES OF THE 



be better characterized than as dispersed, that is, hating the 

 ganglions scattered over different parts of the body. The 

 remarkable variety in the manner of this dispersion is be- 

 yond doubt the immediate cause of that want of unifor- 

 mity which reigns throughout the organs of sensation, lo- 

 comotion, respiration and digestion, and which occasions 

 the Mollusca to be so especially difficult to arrange. The 

 senses of the Mollusca seem to be confined solely to those 

 of taste and touch, though Cuvier supposes them to be also 

 able to smell. The black points which have obtained the 

 name of eyes seem to serve less for sight than for touch ; 

 at least they display little if any sensibility of the presence 

 of light, while their existence obviously increases the irri- 

 tability of the tentacula as organs of touch. Cuvier has 

 therefore well said, that the Mollusca ought to be consi- 

 dered as animals but little developed, hardly susceptible of 

 industry, and which preserve their existence merely by their 

 fecundity and their tenacity of life. 



But we return to the genus Clio, as a passage whereby 

 we may quit the Mollusca for other and more perfectly 

 organized animals, namely, the 



Cephalopoda. 



The form of the Clio borealis is almost quite that of the 

 genus Loligo, even to the fins. Its body is even terminated 

 by an empty part, forming a sort of wrinkled tail or very 

 depressed appendage, which, according to De Blainville, 

 would also exist in the genus Loligo, were not this part ren- 

 dered solid by the point of the protecting horny lanceshaped 

 body which takes the place of the shell in these animals. 

 In Clio, as in the Cephalopoda, the head is attached to the 

 body by a neck ; the eyes are in both situated in the head, 



