35 



serrated. The back and upper surface of the wings are of a deep 

 purple- blue tint, exhibiting in certain parts greenish reflections. 

 The primaries (with the exception of the first quill) and the second- 

 aries (with the exception of the three or four innermost quills) are 

 red, margined with black ; the shafts of these feathers are also black. 

 The outer primary is black, and the two or three following feathers 

 are broadly margined externally with the same colour. All the 

 wing feathers are black at the base ; on the outermost feathers the 

 black colouring occupies but little space, but in each successive 

 feather it increases in extent. The feathers of the tail are of a very 

 dark green colour above, inclining to black ; beneath they are black, 

 but exhibit indistinct purple reflections. The rump, upper and un- 

 der tail coverts, thighs, and vent are black, obscurely tinted with 

 purple or green in parts. The tarsi are black. The eyes are hazel, 

 and the naked, or almost naked space around the eye, is of a crimson 

 colour ; not carunculated, as in C. Buffonii and C. leucotis, 



A highly-interesting and valuable series of specimens of the Paper 

 Nautilus (^Argonauta Argo), consisting of the animals and their 

 shells of various sizes, of ova in various stages of development, 

 and of fractured shells in different stages of reparation, were ex- 

 hibited and commented on by Professor Owen, to whom they had 

 been transmitted for that purpose by Madame Jeanette Power. 

 Mr. Owen stated that these specimens formed part of a large collec- 

 tion, illustrative of the natural history of the Argonaut, and bearing 

 especially on the long-debated question of the right of the Cepha- 

 lopod inhabiting the Argonaut shell to be considered as the true 

 fabricator of that shell. 



This collection was formed by Madame Power in Sicily in the 

 year 1838, during which period she was engaged in repeating her 

 experiments and observations on the Argonaut, having then full 

 cognizance of the nature of the little parasite {Hectocotylus, Cuv.), 

 which had misled her in regard to the development of the Argonaut 

 in a previous suite of experiments described by her in the Transac- 

 tions of the Giaenian Academy for 1836. 



As this mistake had been somewhat illogically dwelt on, to depre- 

 ciate the value of other observations detailed in Madame Power's 

 Memoir, Mr. Owen observed, that it was highly satisfactory to 

 find that the most important of the statements in that memoir had 

 been subsequently repeated and confirmed by an able French mala- 

 cologist, M. Sander Rang. Mr. Owen then proceeded to recapitu- 

 late these points. 



First, with reference to the relative position of the Cephalo- 

 pod to the shell, Madame Power, in her memoir of 1836, describes 

 the siphon as being applied to the part of the shell opposite to the 

 involuted spire. M. Sander Rang, who made his observations on 

 the Argonaut in the port of Algiers, after having had cognizance of 

 Madame Power's experiments, states, in his memoir published in 

 Guerins's ' Magazin de Zoologie' (1837), that in all the Argonauts 

 observed by him, the siphon and ventral surface of the Cephalopod 



