522 M. SANDER RANG 



of great merit have put forth on this subject. We were for- 

 tunate enough to notice some new facts, and our first impres- 

 sion was, we confess, that our discoveries were perhaps 

 favorable to the opinion that this cephalopod does not para- 

 sitically occupy the shell in which it resides ; we proposed 

 on our return to France, to present these as simple facts re- 

 sulting from our own observations, but without adding any 

 reasoning, or drawing from them any exact inferences, to the 

 one among our zoologists who has most especially devoted 

 his attention to this matter, and who has for a long period, 

 and almost singly, maintained his opinion with a power of 

 conviction, which on the part of so learned and enlightened 

 a man is very likely at least to suspend the judgment of 

 others. 



We had an interview with M. de Blainville, and he was 

 struck with our remarks ; he consented to lay a note from us 

 before the Institute ; and was desirous that he should 

 himself, together with M. Dumeril, be charged with the 

 office of reporting upon our observations. 



M. de Blainville had then in his hands the interesting ob- 

 servations which Madame Power had just made upon the 

 argonaut, and which had conducted us to new discoveries ; 

 he had besides a crowd of documents on the same subject, 

 and we consider ourselves happy to have been the means of 

 inducing on his part, the publication of a memoir which 

 throws so much light upon the subject it treats of, and which 

 has at the same time the advantage, if not of deciding the 

 question, at least of settling more precisely the opinion and 

 the arguments of that naturalist; as well as of awakening and 

 stimulating anew the ardour of travellers, who alone can fur- 

 nish the means to solve this zoological problem of nearly two 

 thousand years. 



The report of M. de Blainville was read by him to the 

 Academy of Science, at the sitting of April 24, 1837, and 

 printed immediately in the next number of the ' Comptes- 

 rendus' and in many metropolitan journals, which were eager 

 to give at least some extracts from it. 



M. de Blainville did not confine himself to this ; for hav- 

 ing added this report to fresh dissertations on the same sub- 

 ject, he formed it into the memoir, or rather the letter of which 

 we speak here, and which is to be found in the third number 

 of the i Annales Francaises et Etrangeres d'Anatomie et de 

 Physiologic' 



Note. — Upon the poitlp of the argonaut. Sent to the Aca- 

 demy of Sciences. — Madame Power, a French lady living at 

 Messina, has just communicated to us the experiment she 



