52 MULLER ON THE MALE OP 



Article II. 



Upon the Male of Argonauta Argo and the Hectocotyli. 

 By Professor Heinrich Muller of Wurzburg. 



[From Siebold and KoUiker's Zeitschrift fiir Zoologie, June 1852.] 



Among the many perplexities presented by the sexual rela- 

 tions of the Cephalopoda, we have had to reckon, even up to the 

 present time, the statement of the majority of observers, that 

 they had found none but female Argonauts. I believe that in 

 the present essay I for the first time describe the perfect male 

 Argonaut, as one of the arms of which the so-called Hectocotylus 

 Argonauta is developed. The Hectocotyli, which, from the first, 

 Cuvier called "truly extraordinary'^ creatures, will none the 

 less deserve that title. 



It is well known that Kolliker* has endeavoured to show that 

 the Hectocotylus of the Argonaut, described by Delle Chiajef 

 and afterwards by Costa J, is the male of this Cephalopod ; that 

 the newly discovered Hectocotylus Tremoctopodis also is the 

 male of Tremoctopus violaceus, D. Ch. ; and Von Siebold § has 

 assented to his views. 



More lately Veranyll, in his work upon the Cephalopoda, 

 communicated some very important discoveries with regard to 

 the Hectocotylus of an Octopod. He found, that among five 

 specimens of a peculiar species which he had previously named 

 Octopus Carena, in three the third arm upon the right side was 

 longer and stronger than the others, and was provided with a 

 vesicle at its extremity. The fourth specimen had in the same 

 position a short pedunculated vesicle ; and the fifth possessed 

 simply the peduncle without either arm or vesicle. Filippi 

 noticed that the longer arm, which in one instance was observed 



♦ Annals of Natural History, 1845. Linnaean Transactions, vol. xx. 

 Bericht von d. Zootomischen Anstalt zu Wurzburg, 1849. 

 t Descrizione, iii. p. 137, tab. 152. 

 X Annales d. Sciences Nat. 1841, p. 184 and pi. 13. 

 § Vergleichende Anatomie, p. 363. 

 II Mollusques Mediterraneans, l^^e partie, Genoa, 1847-51. 



