AND THE MALES OF CERTAIN CEPHALOPODS. 149 



give any detailed description of the nervous, alimentary, circu- 

 latory, and respiratory systems of these animals, the high organi- 

 zation of these systems being obvious from our figures or from 

 the mere inspection of the animal. It is the same for the male 

 of the Argonaut, although the difference in shape between this 

 and its female is still more remarkable ; so great indeed, that so 

 scrupulous an observer as our friend M. Krohn neglected to 

 examine these little creatures, which he took to be young just 

 hatched, and still provided with their yelk-sac. We have already 

 said that the discovery of these minute males of the Argonaut 

 belongs to Dr. Miiller of Wurzburg, who will without doubt 

 inform us that their internal organization resembles that of the 

 other Cephalopoda. We have only been able to examine a 

 single specimen of these minute males, long preserved in alcohol, 

 and given to one of us by M. Krohn, and we can affirm that in 

 point of external structure, which we have alone examined, it 

 perfectly agrees with the type of the other Cephalopods. This 

 is obvious from the figure we have given of this little male*. 

 The male of the Tremoctopus violaceus alone is not yet known ; 

 however, we have no fear but that further researches, in the di- 

 rection we have taken, will discover the male which bears the 

 Hectocotylus described by M. Kolliker, and which differs in many 

 points from the other Hectocotyli. 



All the Hectocotyli that have been described up to the present 

 time as perfectly independent beings are then nothing else than 

 the detached arms of certain species of Cephalopods, in which 

 the males, for the rest perfectly normal, are smaller than the 

 females. All our observations prove that these arms are de- 

 tached with extreme readiness, and that the pedicle which 

 carries them exhibits, after its separation, a clean smooth surface, 

 without any trace of laceration. The detached Hectocotyli prove 

 as evidently that this separation takes place in a natural manner, 

 for their posterior extremity never exhibits any trace of tearing 

 nor of cicatrization. The pedicle which remains upon the 

 body after the arm has become detached, without question re- 

 produces this arm, and that probably by a process of budding, 

 comparable perhaps to the reproduction of the deciduous horns 

 of certain ruminants. Our observations have only permitted us 

 * Omitted here. 7V. 



