THE MAGAZINE 



OF 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



AUGUST, 1837. 



Art. I. Report of a Notice, by M. Rang, respecting the Inhabitant 

 of the Argonaut. By MM. Dumeril and de Blainville. 



(Translated from the Comptes Bendus Hebdomadaires des Seances de 

 F Academic des Sciences for April 24. 1837.) 



Since one of us published the reasons upon which we 

 grounded the opinion, that the animal found in the Argonaut 

 is a parasite, inhabiting, like the Pagurus, a shell which does 

 not belong to it* (reasons to which, we must frankly say, only 

 trivial objections, and such as are easy to refute, have yet 

 been opposed), many persons, placed in favourable circum- 

 stances, have sought to determine the question. Among the 

 observations which have come under our notice on this sub- 

 ject, we shall cite those of Mrs. Power, published by Professor 

 Maravigno, in a Messenian journal ; those of Mr. Gray, one 

 of the officers in the zoological department of the British 

 Museum; and, finally, those of Captain Rang, which he has 

 sent to the Academy, and upon which M. Dumeril and my- 

 self have been requested to report. 



Before examining the accounts of M. Rang, with the per- 

 mission of the Academy, we will give an extract from M. 

 Maravigno's pamphlet, upon Mrs. Power's experiments; since 

 it was these experiments which led M. Rang to the observa- 

 tions which he has detailed in his note. 



Mrs. Power, says M. Maravigno, aware of Poli's observa- 

 tions, published after the death of that distinguished malacolo- 

 gist, in the last volume of his Testacea of the Two Sicilies, and 

 being at the localities in which the Argonaut abounds, it oc- 

 curred to her to look out for some new proofs of the non- 

 parasitic nature of the animal inhabiting this shell. Knowing 

 that the conchyliferous Mollusca have the power of reproducing 

 pieces of their shell which have been accidentally removed, she 

 broke in more than one place an Argonaut shell, containing 

 a Cephalopod, and had the satisfaction to see that these pieces, 



* Contained in the Journal de Physique, &c, vol. lxxxvi. p. 366., and 

 vol. lxxxvii. p. 47. — Ed. 



Vol. I. — No. 8. n. s. u g 



