224 OVIPOSITION OF THE ARGONAUT. 



discoidal portion of the chamber, and the posterior portion 

 of the roof.* The eggs very numerous, ovoid, pale- 

 yellow, and semipellucid, are all united together by a 

 delicate, glutinous, transparent, filamentous web which is 

 attached to each ovum by a slender, tapering peduncle 

 fixed to one extremity. The entire egg-mass is suspended 

 to the body-whorl of the spire, at its anterior part, by 

 means of a pencil of delicate glutinous threads, which re- 

 tain it in a proper position. 



On my return to England, I had an opportunity of 

 examining the figures which Poli has given us in his mag- 

 nificent work, "Testacea utriusque Sicilise," where he has 

 represented the egg-mass, though not in situ, but unra- 

 velled, f He observes regarding this body: "Ovorum 

 congeries eboris nitorem aemulantiuni, partim jam ab 

 ovario emissa, ac racemorum instar composita, cymbae 

 puppi involute adhaerebat.j" Professor Owen, in his 

 Lectures on Invertebrate Animals, mentions the same 

 fact ; he observes that "in the Argonaut, the minute ova 

 are appended by long filamentary stalks to the cavity of 

 the involuted spire of the shell, where they are hatched.** 



The posterior, globular part of the body of the female 

 is in close opposition to the mass of ova, and thus, like a 

 strange aquatic Mygale, or other spider, does this re- 

 markable Cephalopod carry about her eggs in a light 



* Tills calcareous nest of the Argonaut, so ingeniously formed by the 

 instinct of the mother for the purpose of protecting her eggs from injury, 

 thus resembles, in some measure, those nidimental capsules secreted by 

 many marine Gasteropods for the preservation of the immature embryos. 



f Tab. xli. f. 2. 

 \ p. 10. 



* * Lect. on Comp. Anat. of Inv. An. p. 360. 



