258 
familiar to visitors at Lyme Regis and Whitby, who may see 
them offered there for sale in the shop-windows of the dealers, 
or may collect them for themselves from the Liassic strata, 
which are exposed in the cliffs and along the coast at those 
watering places. 
The Cephalopoda have always been objects of great in- 
terest to the JSTaturalist. So long ago as the reign of Alexander 
the Grreat, Aristotle, the father of Natural History, aided by 
the munificent liberality of his ro3^al patron, wrote his 
remarkable " History of Animals,'^ and with wonderful dis- 
crimination pointed out the difference between the naked 
forms (jULaXaKta^ and the !N^autilus, a true shell-bearer ; and 
though more than 2,000 years have passed since then, it is 
surprising how marvellously little alteration is required to 
adapt his descriptions, so far as they go, to the results of 
modern research. It is recorded of the great French Com- 
parative Anatomist, Baron Cuvier, that whilst a young and 
ardent though comparatively unknown student of Zoology, 
he collected the Cuttle Fishes cast up on the sea shore, near 
his home in Normandy, dissected them and made drawings 
of them with their own ink, and thus laid the foundations of 
that brilliant reputation which he subsequently so justly won. 
"Nearly half a century ago, Mr. George Bennett had the good 
fortune to capture, in Marekini Bay, at the island of Erro- 
mango, in the New Hebrides, a Pearly Nautilus (N. pom- 
pilius, Linne) ; this specimen was presented to the Eoyal 
College of Surgeons, London, and formed the subject of a 
valuable memoir, by Professor Owen.* The researches of such 
distinguished Naturalists as Yan Beneden, Carus, Chdron, 
Clarke, Cuvier, D'Orbigny, Eschricht, Ferrusac, Grant, Gren- 
acher, Hancock, Harting, Hensen, Yan der Hoeven, Huxle}^, 
Keferstein, King, Kolliker, Krohn, Lankester, Macdonald, 
* *' Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus," by Eichard Owen. London, 1832. 
