THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



NATURAL HISTORY 



NOVEMBER, 1839. 



Art. I. — On the Genus Argonauta. By M. Rang. 1 



It will, perhaps, be thought extraordinary that after all the 

 learned dissertations which have been published upon the 

 poulp of the argonaut, and especially after the lucid and 

 convincing memoir which M. de Blainville has just inserted 

 in the third number of the ' French and Foreign Annals of 

 Anatomy and Physiology,' we should yet undertake to treat 

 anew upon this subject, having, besides, nothing very novel 

 or important to advance. 



We thought however, after the reading of the memoir re- 

 ferred to, that we ought to bring forward the note which gave 

 rise to it, and of which M. de Blainville had been able to 

 reproduce only a few sentences. Besides which the memoir 

 itself gives us occasion to offer some remarks, as much with 

 a view to rectify certain facts which concern ourselves, as to 

 state our opinion as observers of some others. 



This is therefore, in a few words, the history of the note in 

 question, of M. de Blainville's memoir, and of the present 

 article. 



Finding ourselves at Algiers, where the poulps and shells 

 of the argonaut are sometimes to be met with even in the 

 middle of the harbour and along the quays, we were able to 

 study at our ease this curious animal, and to see whether, by 

 thus studying, we could obtain thence such data as would 

 confirm or weaken the widely diverging opinions which men 



1 Translated from an article in Guerin's Magasin de Zoologie, entitled 

 " Documents pour servir a l'histoire naturelle des Cephalopodes crypto- 

 dibranches, par M. Rang." 



Vol. III.— No. 35. n. s. 3 l 



