Argonaut

one of the heroes whe accompanied Jason in the = shir * Argo’ when he sailed on his mythic voyage in quest of the golden fleece (generally used in the plural). The tales describing the return of the Argonauts differ very e entially. The word is also applied to a genus of cephalopod mollusks, the typical one of the family argonaut ide. ‘The best known species is the argonaut, or paper sailor. The shell is thin and translucent. Aristotle supposed that it floated with the concave side up, the animal holding out its arms, after the manner of sails, to catch the breeze. Poets have ever since repeated the fable; but naturalists know that when the argonaut floats the sail-shaped arms are applied closely to the sides of the shell, and when the animal crawls at the bottom the so-called boat is reversed like the shell of a snail.