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Show 996 PROF, D'ARCY W. THOMPSON O N [Dec. 18, about 4*5 inches indistinctly paired ones including about 62 small suckers. On the dorso-lateral arm are about 20 pairs of large suckers, beyond which the size of the suckers suddenly diminishes for the last 4 inches, in which there are about 60 suckers, the last few being exceedingly minute. The diminution in size of the suckers is more abrupt in this case than in the other arms. In the dorsal arm there are about 38 pairs of suckers, followed by about 50 less regularly arranged in the last 4 inches. Of the left tentacle only about seven inches is preserved. At its broadest part it is about two and a half inches broad and much flattened. It does not seem to have been recently broken off, but is healed over at its extremity. Of the other tentacle about twenty-three inches is preserved in connection with the body. It is a broad, flattened strap, about an inch and a half in breadth. The distal end of the tentacle, including the tentacular club (which has hitherto remained unknown) is, very fortunately, preserved ; it has all the appearance of having been directly continuous with the attached portion, and measures nearly 24 inches in length, the terminal club occupying the last eight inches. The club is laterally compressed, and has on each side a web or frill, just like that which runs parallel to the rows of suckers in the arms : this frill is only about a quarter of an inch broad on the inner side, on which side it may be traced as far as the tip ; on the external side it is fully twice as broad, and stops some three inches short of the tip. The arrangement of the connective organ is as follows :-The first inch and a half or inch and a quarter of the club is occupied by a group of intermixed suckers and pads, in which we can discern an arrangement of six oblique rows containing 3, 4,4, 4, 3,3 elements respectively : of these the first or external one has two pads and a sucker between, the last has two suckers and a pad between; the rest consist alternately of suckers and pads exclusively. On the left tentacle, the order of pads and suckers doubtless alternates with this. Beyond this first portion of the connective organ commences a double row of hooks, of which there are about eighteen pairs. In our specimen many of these are missing. Of those that are left the largest belongs to the ninth pair, and beyond it they become much smaller. The lowermost hooks are about three-eighths of an inch long and nearly of equal breadth in their flattened bases. The largest, towards the middle of the club, are about five-eighths of an inch long, and with bases about five-sixteenths of an inch broad. The extreme tip of the club bears a group of thirteen small suckers within a square of about a quarter of an inch. Thus the connective organ is precisely that of Onychoteuthis, or of Grray's allied genus, or subgenus thereof, Ancistroteuthis. Of the pen, the horny blade is lost in this specimen, and only the great cone which terminates it posteriorly is preserved. This remarkable object, the nearest approach to a modern belemnite, forms a straight cone 15| inches long and lf inches in diameter |
