52 MULLER ON THE MALE OP 



ARTICLE II. 



Upon the Male of Argonauta Argo and the Hectocotyli. 

 By Professor HEINRICH MULLER of Wurzbury. 



[From Siebold and Kolliker's Zeitschrift fur 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 

 Argonauts is developed. The Hectocoiyli, which, from the first, 

 Cuvier called " truly extraordinary 55 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 Verany||, 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 Wiirzburg, 1849. 

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

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

 Vergleichende Anatomic, p. 363. 

 || Mollusques Mediterraneans, 1^* partie, Genoa, 1847-51. 



