01' CEIMIALOI'ODOUS OVA. 



98 



were lying in little heaps at the bottom of the bucket, cithor dead 

 or dying. They had entirely lost the active movements which 

 had at first distinguished them ; and an occasional contraction of 

 the bell was the only sign of life which any of them exhibited. 

 Those which I had myself separated from the mass, and 

 previously placed in a tumbler of water, were by far the 

 most lively; and from these the accompanying figures were 

 made. 



On no other occasion did I meet with a body of this nature ; 

 and the only thing I ever saw approaching to it in form was in 

 the Indian Ocean, north of the Equator, when I one day ob- 

 served something of the kind pass by, which had been a puzzle to 

 me ever since ; for the rate at which we were steaming (ten knots) 

 rendered it impossible to take any accurate note of it. Nor 

 should I have been able to guess the character of the body I 

 have here described, had I not been so fortunate as to secure it 

 for closer examination. 



The very great contrast which this body offers to the known 

 forms of the spawn of Cephalopods in general is very remark- 

 able ; and its singular resemblance to the spawn of the Am- 

 phibia is no less worthy of attention. "What this may signify is 

 a matter of interesting consideration. The embryo stages of this 

 animal (of which I have preserved a few) will, of course, offer 

 some, though a very imperfect, clue to its adult form, and to the 

 determination of its genus. The presence of fin-like projections 

 upon the upper portion of the bell seems to point out its separa- 

 tion from the genera JEledone, Octopus, Tremoctopus, and Ar- 

 gonauta, though to which of the pinnated genera (Histioteuthis, 

 Sepiola, Rossia, Sepia, Sepioteuthis, Verwiia, Onychoteuthis, Hnoplo- 

 teuthis, Loligo, and Loligopsis) it may belong, or whether to some 

 new genus, cannot now be determined. The body was evidently 

 perfect in itself, and perfectly symmetrical ; and it is curious to ob- 

 serve so large a mass, and such a vast quantity of animals as the 

 product of a single individual. Probably in it, as in the Frog 

 during the breeding-season, the ovaries occupy the greater part 

 of the body; and probably, also, as is the case with the Frog, 

 when the ova are deposited in the water, the jelly-like sub- 

 stance in which they are enveloped absorbs a large quantity of the 

 fluid, so that the whole mass rapidly increases in volume until it 

 becomes many times as iarge as the animal from which it was 

 expelled. 



