REPORT ON ZOOLOGY. 221 



ticularly in the respiratory and circulatory systems, is on the 

 whole strictly conformable to that of the higher Cephalopoda, 

 between which and the Gasteropoda it constitutes an osculant 

 form*. At the conclusion of his memoir Mr. Owen has given 

 the characters of two orders, Dibranchiata and Tetrahran- 

 chiata, into which he proposes to divide the Cephalopoda, these 

 characters being founded on the details of the organization of 

 the Nautilus Pompilius. 



Dr. Grant has also added considerably to our knowledge of 

 the structure of this class. In the New Edinb. Phil. Journ. \ 

 he has given the anatomy and extei'nal characters of an appa- 

 rently new species of Octopus % from the Frith of Forth. In 

 the Zool. Trans. § he has also published an account of the genus 

 Loligopsis of Lamarck, the very existence of which was before 

 disputed by some naturalists : he has examined its structure, 

 and found it to constitute a new form in this class, possessing 

 characters hitherto known only in the Testaceous Cephalopods, 

 with others common in the naked species. In the same volume [j 

 is a second paper by this distinguished naturalist on the anatomy 

 of the Sepiola vulgaris. 



The controversy respecting the animal inhabitant of the Argo-^ 

 naut is not yet decided, at least not to the entire satisfaction 

 of all parties. Future observation will, however, probably con- 

 firm the opinion of Poli % and Ferussac **, that the animal 

 hitherto alone found in that shell {OcythoU) strictly belongs to it. 

 The former author expresses himself decidedly with respect to this 

 point, asserting that he has traced the gradual development of 

 the shell from the egg. Mr. Broderip appears still to entertain 

 doubts on the subject, but the evidence which he has advanced 

 on the other side of the question is simply negative ft- 



* This circumstance seems to point out the impropriety of considering the 

 Cephalopoda as a distinct division of the animal kingdom, according to the 

 views of Meckel, Laurencet, and Meyraux. ■ f 1827. 



X According to De Ferussac, under the names of Octopus vulgaris, Loligo 

 vulgaris, and Sepia officinalis, several very distinct species of Cephalopoda have 

 been hitherto confounded. § 1833, vol. i. p. 21. || p. 77. 



H See Ann. des Sci. Nat. (1825), torn. iv. p. 495. 



•* Mem. de la Soc. d'Hist. Nat. de Paris, tom. ii. p. 160. 



tt See Zool. Journ. vol. iv. p. 57. Mr. Gray is also of opinion that the 

 Oeytkoe is only parasitic in the shell of the Argonauia \ and I may state, that 

 since this Report was read he has brought forward what he considers as a new 

 argument in support of this side of the question. This argument is founded on 

 the size of what Mr. Gray terms the nucleus of the shell, or that original portion 

 of it which covered the animal within the egg, and which in some specimens of 

 young shells oi Argonauta Argo and A. hians, lately exhibited to the Zoological 

 Society, he has shown to be many times larger than the largest eggs of the 

 Ocythoe found within the Argonaut shells. From this Mr. Gray has inferred 



