496 THE OCEAN WORLD. 
their heads. Nor did it require the dithyrambic praises with which 
the ancients have surrounded it to recommend it to the admiration of 
modern naturalists. Without exaggerating the graceful attributes 
with which it is gifted, it is at once one of the most curious objects 
in Nature. 
Its body (Fig. 336) is ovoid in form, and it is furnished with eight 
tentacles, covered with a double row of suckers. Of these tentacles, 
six are narrow and slender, tapering to a fine point towards the ex- 
tremity, while the remaining two spread out in the form of wings or 
sails. These are all folded up 
when in a state of repose. The 
body itself is contained in a thin, 
‘white, and fragile univalve shell, 
which is oval, flattened on the 
exterior, but rolled up in a spiral 
in the interior, the last turn of the 
shell being so large as to give 
it something of the form of an 
elegantly-shaped shallop. Sin- 
gularly enough, the body of the 
animal does not penetrate to the 
bottom of the shell, nor is it at- 
tached to it by any muscular 
ligament; nor is the shell moulded 
exactly upon it, as is the case with 
most other mollusca. 
What does all thisimply? Is 
the Argonaut a parasite, a fraudu- 
lent disinheritor, a vile assassin, 
who, having surprised and killed 
the legitimate proprietor of the shell, has installed itself in its place, 
and in the proper house of its victim? Such crimes are not without 
example in the natural history of animals—witness the proceedings 
of the curious hermzt crab, whose proceedings we shall glance at in a 
future chapter. The parasitic character of the Nautilus was long 
believed in by naturalists ; but recent facts have corrected this opinion. 
We have collected their shells, of all dimensions and of all ages, 
inhabited always by the same animal, whose size is always propor- 
tioned to the volume of the shell. More than that, it is now known 
that in the egg of the Argonaut the rudiments of the shell exist. 
M. Chenu tells us, that under the microscope Professor Duvernoy 
discovered a distinct shell contained in the embryo. Sir Everard 
Fig. 336.—The Argonauta argo (Linnzus). 
