Aninml of Argonauta. 65 



These experiments must be deemed confirmatory of those recorded in 

 Sir E, Home's paper. To the assertion that the shell of Argonauta is 

 internal I cannot so readily subscribe. 



A careful selection of the very finest specimens which have found their 

 way to this country enables me to state, that all the known species are 

 furnished with a delicate epidermis in their natural state. 



I have sometimes thought that I could observe traces of muscular im- 

 pression in the inside of the involuted termination of the chamber of the 

 shell, such, for instance, as might be caused by the insertion of parts 

 similar to those inserted in the shell of Carinaria, which, by the bye, 

 stood in the Systema Naturse as a species of the genus Argonauta, Animal 

 Sepia, before the soft parts were discovered. 



The multitude of specimens of the genus Argonauta which are now 

 brought home, picked up in most instances on beaches or sand banks 

 after a storm, have given rise to the question, why, if the cephalopod 

 usually found in the shell be a parasite, we do not sometimes find the soft 

 parts really belonging to the shell ? The safe answer to the question lies 

 in another. Look at the multitudes of specimens of Nautilus Pompilius, 

 one of the most common of shells: the muscular impressions are obvious 

 enough, but where do you find instances of the soft parts ? Now it is 

 well known that it has been an object with Zoologists attached to scien- 

 tific marine expeditions to obtain these soft parts, and, if we are not 

 misinformed, the French Zoologists in particular have been on the 

 alert to procure them; but none have been captured of late years. 

 Of the two well known figures of these soft parts one represents an almost 

 undefined mass, and the other, which has more pretension, is, to say the 

 least, very apocryphal. 



Upon the whole we cannot agree with M. de Ferussac that this contro- 

 versy is set at rest. The author of this memoir had the pleasure of 

 seeing M. de Blainville when he was in England last year, and that gentle- 

 man appeared to be more than ever convinced that the cephalopod foimd 

 in the shells of the Argonauta is parasitical. He saw the specimen which 

 is here figured and he said it confirmed his opinion. 



But it is even reported that the real constructor of the shell, an animal 

 totally different ft-om the Poulpe which is its usual inhabitant, has been 



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