ROOM XIII.] 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
83 
this collection, (presented by the Royal Society,) and a 
head* and foot, said to have belonged to a specimen which 
was formerly in Tradescant’s Museum, but is now in the 
Ashmolean Museum at Oxford. The cast of the head 
above mentioned, (in the same Case,) was presented by 
P. Duncan, Esq. The bird, in the shortness of the 
wings, has much analogy to the ostrich, but its foot, in 
general, rather resembles that of the common fowl, and 
the beak, from the position of its nostrils, is most nearly 
allied to the Vultures; so that its true place in the series 
of birds, if indeed such a bird ever really existed, is not, 
as yet, satisfactorily determined. 
The Table Cases in the middle of the Room contain the 
general collection of Shells. 
Cases 1, 2 contain the shells of cephalopodous Mol- 
lusca, which are characterized by having a series of conical 
arms radiating round the mouth, which serve as organs of 
motion and prehension : some that have eight arms have 
no shell, as Octopus, Eledona , and Ocythoe: others have 
ten arms, two of which are longer than the rest. These 
have either an internal bone, as the Cuttle-fish, (sepia,) or 
a horny plate called the Sea Pen, as the Loligo, Sepiola, 
and Cranchia. Lastly, some have many short tubular re¬ 
tractile arms, and these inhabit the last division of an ex¬ 
ternal many-chambered shell, as the Nautilus ; to these are 
allied the genera Orthoceriies , Ammonites, Scaphites, Tur- 
rilites, and also probably the Belemnites , all of which are 
fossil. 
In Cases 3 and 4 are placed a series of models on an 
enlarged scale, and some specimens of minute bodies, 
which have been regarded as analogous to the Nautili, but 
the nature of the animals is not known; they probably 
belong to several different orders. Some have supposed 
them to be internal shells, but this cannot be the case 
with all, as many are attached by their outer surface to 
sea-weed and shells. They are formed of cells, furnished 
with one or more small mouths, placed one on another in 
different directions, some forming straight lines, as Nodo - 
sari a, and others spiral ones, as Rotalia . In others the 
* The late Dr. George Shaw has given a figure of the head of the 
Dodo, in the Naturalist’s Miscellany, PI, 166. 
