ON THE ARGONAUT. 527 



2nd. The arms which are provided with membranes in the 

 poulp have no other function than that of enveloping the shell 

 in which the animal lives, and that for a determinate object. 



3d. The poulp with its shell progresses in the open sea in 

 the same manner as the other cryptodibranchial cephalopods. 



4th. When at the bottom of the sea the poulp creeps upon 

 an infundibuliform disk represented by the junction of the arms 

 at their base, covered with the shell, and the part reputed 

 ventral above ; having in this posture the apppearance of a 

 gasteropodous mollusc. 



Let us now see what consequences we can deduce from 

 these four established facts. 



Fabulous Navigation of the Argonaut. — We shall say but 

 little on this subject, only remarking that in giving a formal 

 contradiction to those persons who have pleased themselves 

 with trumpeting the marvellous recital of the ancients, and who, 

 doubtless not finding it extraordinary enough, have yet more 

 enriched it from the fertility of their own imaginations, our 

 observations bring down the locomotive powers and habits 

 of this mollusc to a normal state, that is to say, to what ob 

 tains among other animals of the same class, and it is a reform 

 which no naturalist that we know of has yet dared to make, 

 though we are well persuaded that many among them put 

 little or no faith in these artificial descriptions. 



A very natural reflection flows from what we have just said : 

 how could the important question relating to the argonaut 

 possibly proceed in a clear and straightforward manner, when 

 we see that for about two thousand years we have pleased 

 ourselves with going aside into the fields of the picturesque ; 

 and that naturalists of high repute even, admitted it all with- 

 out a previous examination. 



If these men had dreamed of verifying facts, they would 

 have discovered the real use of the supposed sails, and the 

 question being earlier carried out would perhaps by this time 

 have been resolved. 



Use of the arms furnished with membranous lobes. — In 

 discovering the use of the arms provided with membranous 

 lobes, we thought at the first glance that the solution of the 

 problem lay there ; and it was this impression which led us 

 to express ourselves in the manner we did in our note trans- 

 mitted to the Academy. One of the first sensations we felt 

 was astonishment at what we saw ; since so many naturalists 

 who have professed to know the argonaut with its poulp in 

 a living state, had pointed out nothing similar; and this cir- 

 cumstance which led us to reflect earnestly, encouraged us 

 to carry on our observations with the most minute attention. 



