Fig. 91.—Ammonite restored.
The Belemnites, molluscous Cephalopods of a very curious organisation, appeared in great numbers, and for the first time, in the Jurassic seas. Of this Mollusc we only possess the fossilised internal “bone,” analogous to that of the modern cuttle-fish and the calamary of the present seas. This simple relic is very far from giving us an exact idea of what the animal was to which the name of Belemnite has been given (from Βελεμνον, a dart) from their supposed resemblance to the head of a javelin. The slender cylindrical bone, the only vestige remaining to us, was merely the internal skeleton of the animal. When first discovered they were called, by the vulgar, “Thunder-stones” and “Ladies’ fingers.” They were, at last, inferred to be the shelly processes of some sort of ancient cuttle-fish. Unlike the Ammonite, which floated on the surface and sunk to the bottom at pleasure, the Belemnite, it has been thought, swam nearer the bottom of the sea, and seized its prey from below.
Fig. 92.—Belemnite restored.
In [Fig. 92] is given a restoration of the living Belemnite, by Dr. Buckland and Professor Owen, in which the terminal part of the animal is marked in a slightly darker tint, to indicate the place of the bone which alone represents in our days this fossilised being. A sufficiently exact idea of this Mollusc may be arrived at from the existing cuttle-fish. Like the cuttle-fish, the Belemnite secreted a black liquid, a sort of ink or sepia; and the bag containing the ink has frequently been found in a fossilised state, with the ink dried up, and elaborate drawings have been made with this fossil pigment.
The beaks, or horny mandibles of the mouth, which the Belemnite possessed in common with the other naked Cephalopoda, are represented in [Fig. 78], p. 181.
As Sir H. De la Beche has pointed out, the destruction of the animals whose remains are known to us by the name of Belemnites was exceedingly great when the upper part of the Lias of Lyme Regis was deposited. Multitudes seem to have perished almost simultaneously, and millions are entombed in a bed beneath Golden Cap, a lofty cliff between Lyme Regis and Bridport Harbour, as well as in the upper Lias generally.[62]