ON THE ARGONAUT. 15 



question in the hands of M. Ferussac, but merely drawings 

 of them ! and that also these allowed some slight differences 

 to be perceived, particularly in the colouring. 



Every one will agree with us, that, if this fact does not en- 

 tirely lose its importance by this explanation, it is at least 

 allowable to adjourn all conclusions with respect to it, and 

 set it on one side. As to the rest, what inference of any 

 importance can we draw thence, when we have shown that 

 the premises are incorrect ? In fact, we can affirm positively, 

 that the rice-grained argonaut has never been found in the 

 Mediterranean, but chiefly upon the coasts of Brazil, at the 

 Cape of Good Hope, and in the Indian ocean. 



What we have said of the position and use of the mem- 

 braniferous arms of the poulp of the argonaut, will suffice, 

 according to our view, to demonstrate that the same species 

 of poulp cannot inhabit indifferently either species of shell. 

 If it were otherwise, it would be in fact difficult to conceive 

 how the upper arms and the membranes should be found to 

 correspond in form and proportion with the lateral faces of 

 the shells, which vary much according to their species. Thus 

 we should be troubled to comprehend, how the poulp could 

 maintain itself one day in the rice-grained argonaut, and ano- 

 ther in the Argonauta Argo ; for, if its arms and membranes 

 are just large enough to grasp the extent of the face of the 

 former, they certainly would not be so for those of the latter. 

 We declare further, that we have never found in the Argonauta 

 Argo any but the species which we have sketched at the end 

 of this memoir; and we are obliged to add, that the intensely 

 blue colouring which we have never failed to meet with up- 

 on the large arms, gives us little confidence in the rather 

 romantic pictures hitherto furnished. 



The discovery of the use of the palmated arms overturns 

 some other hypotheses also, from which one or the other 

 party drew more or less force ; and by this means it simpli- 

 fies the question. 



Among such, is the assertion advanced by one naturalist, 

 that the two large arms of the poulp arrange themselves in 

 the interior of the shell, in such a manner that they cor- 

 respond exactly to the two tuberculated edges of the keel, 

 and that then the suckers form the tubercles; — and also 

 Ferussac's way of viewing it, who thought that the palmated 

 part of the great teiitacula rolled itself into a little globular 

 mass, in the spiral cavity. 



Such is also this other opinion of M. Delle Chiaje, who 

 thinks that it is by means of suckers that the animal trans- 

 udes the calcareous matter, destined for the progressive in- 



