Object Status:
Unlocated
Accession Date:
May 30, 1794
Primary Source Reference:
Dunlap's American Daily Advertiser (Philadelphia), 30 May 1794
Notes:
Polypus is an archaic word for a cephalopod having eight or ten tentacles, as an octopus, squid, or cuttlefish. Its habitation refers to its shell. Nautiluses are the only extant cephalopods with a true external shell.
The donor was probably Alexandre Morancy, the author of Monsieur de la Crocheterie, ou, La nouvelle du sept décembre mil sept cent quatre-vingt-dix comédie en un acte et en prose, avec un divertissement (Cap-Français, Haiti, 1791). He presented a copy to the Library Company of Philadelphia, suggesting that he was one of the French refugees who fled to Philadelphia at the time of the Haitian Revolution in 1793.
Specimen Type:
Shells
