SHELL-FISH. 
247 
brought at his sale the sum of twenty-seven pounds, and 
was estimated, in 1815, at double that value ; and there is 
a tradition that a specimen was sold in France for 2400 
livres, or 100 louis! 
Before we dismiss these examples of the great and 
populous “ middle-class ” of animal life, we must give a 
momentary glance at the Cuttles and Squids (Cefhalo- 
foda), which, while they possess much iu common with 
the Univalve Mollusca, rise still higher in the scale than 
they, are still more favoured in the development of func- 
tion and structure, and lead us insensibly to the verge of 
the animal “ aristocracy,” the Vertebrata. 
Strangely enough, the aspect and contour of these fierce 
and formidable creatures, the highest of all Invertebrate 
animals, bring us back to the lowest ; for a Cuttle-fish with 
its cylindrical body, its mouth at the extremity, and a 
circle of long flexible fleshy arms radiating around it, is 
(in form at least) just a Polype over again. There is, it is 
true, an immense difference in structure : the Cuttle is 
encased in a fleshy mantle, which is sometimes expanded 
into swimming fins, has a large head with staring eyes, a 
stout horny beak, like that of a parrot, of formidable 
power, and its arms are furnished with rows of sucking 
disks that act like cupping-glasses, and servo as so many 
instruments of prehension. Internally there is a shelly 
or homy plate which passes down through the substance 
of the mantle, and vestiges of a bony skeleton begin to 
appear in the form of a cartilaginous box which incloses 
the brain, and represents the skull of Vertebrate animals. 
Some species reside in an ample shell, as the 1 aper and 
Pearly Nautilus, both celebrated for their beauty. 
