CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XII.The Ocean and its Living Wonders(continued).The Univalves—A Higher Scale of Animal—The Gasteropoda—Limpets—Used for Basins in the Straits of Magellan—Spiral and Turret Shells—The Cowries—The Mitre Shells—The Purpuras—Tyrian Purple—The Whelk—The Marine Trumpet—The Winged-feet Molluscs—The Cephalopodous Molluscs—The Nautilus—Relic of a Noble Family—The Pearly Nautilus and its Uses—The Cuttle-fish—Michelet’s Comments—Hugo’s Actual Experiences—Gilliatt and his Combat—A Grand Description—The Devil-Fish—The Cuttle-Fish of Science—A Brute with Three Hearts—Actual Examples contrasted with the Kraken—A Monster nearly Captured—Indian Ink and Sepia—The Argonauta—The Paper Nautilus.And now, the bivalves having had their turn, let us direct our attention to a higher class of animals, to which nature has been more generous. They, unlike the first-named molluscs, have heads.“This head,”says Figuier,“is still carried humbly; it is not yetos sublime dedit; it is drawn along an inch or so from the ground, and in no respect resembles the proud and magnificent organ which crowns and adorns the body of the greater and more powerfully organised animals.”The Acephalous, or“headless,”must now make way for the Cephalous, or headed mollusca. These again are divided by the scientists into three great classes, theGasteropoda,Pteropoda, andCephalopoda.The title of theGasteropodais derived from two Greek words signifyingbellyandfoot; theraison d’êtreof that title being that these animals progress by means of flattened discs placed under their bellies. The snail, slug, and cowrie, are leading types of this class.In thePteropoda(from Greek words signifyingwingandfoot) locomotion is effected by membranous fins or wings.Lastly, theCephalopodaare so called because they have prominently, as a class,[pg 140]heads and feet, locomotion being effected by a set of tentacles (arms or legs, as you will). The cuttle-fish and devil-fish (or octopus) are types of this important series of animals.THE LIMPET (Patella).THE LIMPET (Patella).The vastness of the subject precludes the possibility of details, and for evident reasons a few of those inhabiting the sea itself can only be considered here. Among the“Gasteropods,”as they are familiarly termed, the limpets constitute a numerous family. The scientific namePatella(a deep dish or knee-cap) was given to them by Linnæus, the form of their shells fully warranting the title. Some of them are oval, others circular; but all terminate in an elliptic cone. Otherwise they are varied enough, some being smooth, but others having ridges or scales on the outer surface, the edges being often dentated. Their colours are very varied. The head of the animal itself has two horns and two eyes; its foot is a thick fleshy disc, and when it means to hold on to a rock we all know how difficult it is to dislodge it, for the said foot becomes a kind of sucker. Some of those from the coast of Africa and the Antilles, &c., have elegant forms, as witnessPatella umbella,P. granatina,P. longicosta, and others. Although often eaten, they are very tough and indigestible. In Southern seas they attain to a great size; for example, in the Straits of Magellan the natives use for culinary purposes species as large as a slop-basin.TURBO.TURBO.TROCHUS.TROCHUS.Well-known shells are also those of many species ofTrochus; the spiral shell has literally aspiral animalinside it. So also some of the fifty species ofTurbo, which are often marbled in beautiful colours outwardly and superbly nacred within. So again the winding pyramidal shells of theTurritella, many of which are found in every sea. And once more, what mantelpiece of old was not adorned with a pair or more of cowrie shells (Cypræ), natives of every sea! They range from the little whitish money cowrie, actually used in place of coin in parts of Africa to-day, to handsome shells of large size. The animal which inhabits this shell is elongated, and has a head with a pair of long tentacles, each having a very large eye. The foot, as one example specially will show (Cypræ tigris) is an oval sucker, capable of great tenacity.THE COWRIE (Cypræa tigris).THE COWRIE (Cypræa tigris).In every conchologist’s collection will be found some of the mitre shells, so called from their resemblance to a bishop’s mitre, and principally obtained from Indian and Australian seas. So, again, theVoluta, with their oval and graceful forms. The animal inhabiting the latter has a very large head, provided with two tentacles and a mouth furnished with hooked teeth. The foot is very large and projects from the whole mouth of the[pg 141]shell, which is often ornamented with gay colours and varied marks and flutings. So also theConusgenus, the title of which sufficiently indicates its general form, and some of the shells of which command high prices. These generally tropical shells are more uniform in shape than many just mentioned, but they are most beautifully varied in colour and minor details. The“residents”have large heads withsnouts, while their mouths are furnished with horny teeth. Every good collection, too, is sure to contain examples of the genusCassis, principally from the Indian Ocean.VOLUTA.VOLUTA.CONUS.CONUS.Among the one-shell molluscs the Purpuras bear an honoured name; for did they not furnish the Greeks and Romans with the brilliant purple colouring matter which was reserved for the mantles of princes and patricians! The genusPurpurais characterised as possessing an oval shell, thick pointed. The animal itself has a large head, furnished with two swollen conical tentacles close together, and bearing an eye towards the middle of their external side. By means of a large foot they creep about in pursuit of bivalves. The larger and more important kinds come from the warmer seas, especially those surrounding the West Indies and Australia.The purple mentioned in the Scriptures in connection with fine linen was that of the Phœnicians, and came from Tyre. Sir William Wilde discovered not far from the ruins of that city several circular excavations in a rocky cliff, and in these he found a great number of crushed and broken shells of Purpura. He believed that they had been bruised in great masses by the Tyrian workmen for the manufacture of the dye. Shells of the same species (Murex trunculus) are commonly found on the same coast at the present day. Aristotle says that the Tyrian dye was taken from two molluscs inhabiting the Phœnician coasts and seas. According to the great Greek philosopher, one of these had a very large shell, consisting of seven turns of the spire, studded with spines, and terminating in a strong beak; the other had a much smaller shell. It is thought that the latter is to be found in thePurpura lapillus, which abounds in the English Channel. Reaumur and Duhamel both obtained a purple colour from it, which they applied as a dye, and found permanent. The real secret of the production of the Tyrian purple remains undiscovered to-day.PURPURA LAPILLUS.PURPURA LAPILLUS.The genusBuccinumresembles that of thePurpurain many respects. The common[pg 142]whelk belongs to the series. Thus one of the humblest of our shell-fish is allied to the animal from which a nearly priceless dye was once obtained.MUREX.MUREX.HARPA.HARPA.CLEODORA.CLEODORA.The genusHarpaincludes some beautifully marked and coloured shells, of whichH. ventricosais an attractive example. These are chiefly found in the Indian Ocean. The Rock Shells (Murex) abound in every sea, but are finer and more branching in the warmer ones. They are remarkable for bright colours and fantastic forms. The shell is oblong with a long spire attached, its surface often covered with rows of branching spines. The genusTriton, of which about one hundred species are known, is ranged with the genusMurex, on account of points of similarity. The Marine Trumpet (Triton variegatum) which sometimes attains a length of sixteen inches, is a fine example. The genusStrombusincludes among its species the great roughly ornamental shells, often used for grottoes or rockeries. Some of the streets of Vera Cruz are said to be paved with them. Oddest and most remarkable of all the marine shells to be found in the naturalist’s collection are those of the genusPteroceras. They are of fresh and brilliantly shaded colours.STROMBUS.STROMBUS.TRITON.TRITON.And now to thePteropoda, practically“winged feet”molluscs, the position of which in scientific nomenclature many think unsatisfactory. This is, however, of little consequence to the general reader. These curious little molluscs can pass through the deep blue seas they usually inhabit rapidly, reminding us strongly of the movements of a butterfly or some other winged insect. They can“ascend to the surface very suddenly, turn themselves in a determinate space, or rather swim without appearing to change their place, while sustaining themselves at the same height.”“If,”continues Figuier,“anything alarms them, they fold up their flappers and descend to such a depth in their watery world as will give them the security they seek. Thus they pass their lives in the open sea far from any other shelter except that yielded by the gulf weed and other algæ. In appearance and habits these small and sometimes microscopic creatures resemble the fry of some other forms of mollusca. They literally swarm both in tropical and arctic seas; and are sometimes so numerous as to colour the ocean for leagues. They are the principal food of whales and sea-birds in high latitudes, rarely approaching the coast. Only one or two species have been accidentally taken on our shores, and those evidently driven thither by currents into which they have been entangled, or by tempests which have stirred the waters with a power beyond theirs. Dr. Leach states that in 1811, during a tour to the Orkneys, he observed on the rocks of the Isle of Staffa several mutilated specimens ofClio borealis. Some days after, having borrowed a large shrimp net, and rowing along the coast of Mull, when the sea, which had been extremely stormy, had become calm, he succeeded in catching one alive, which is now in the British Museum.”Professor Huxley has told us that they have auditory organs, are sensible of light and heat, and probably of odours, but that they possess very imperfect eyes and tentacles. They have respiratory organs, hearts and livers, and are undeniably social and gregarious, swarming together in great numbers.We now approach the highest class of the mollusca—on paper, only, be it observed, for in actual life most of them are either nearly unapproachable, or, at all events, are most undesirable acquaintances.[pg 143]“The cephalopodous molluscs,”says Figuier, a writer who in descriptive powers is an artistic scientist and a scientific artist,“are indeed highly organised for molluscs, for they possess in a high degree the sense of sight, hearing, and touch. They appear with the earlier animals which present themselves on the earth, and they are numerous even now, although they are far from playing the important part that was assigned to them in the early ages of organic life upon our planet. The Ammonites and Belemnites existed by thousands among the beings which peopled the seas during the secondary epoch in the history of the globe.”The Cephalopods were divided by Professor Owen into two great orders,Tetrabranchiata, or animals having four gills, and theDibranchiata, having two gills. The first order has at this epoch but one genus, that ofNautilus. This group of animals belongs emphatically to the earlier ages of our globe,“is becoming gradually extinct, and presents in our days only some species very rare and few, especially when we compare them with the prodigious numbers of these beings which animated the seas of the ancient world.”It is a fact that the empty shells of the nautilus are more commonly found floating on the ocean than those which are inhabited. No doubt the living nautilus falls a prey either to larger marine animals, or, likely enough, to sea-fowl. Is it not also possible that the lone animal, knowing the fate of its ancestors, and how they lie buried in barren strata, overwhelmed with melancholy apprehensions of his own future, jumps overboard and drowns himself? This suggestion isnotto be found among the recognised authorities.On the sea this scion of a decayed family is a graceful object, and in fine weather projects his head and tentacles, and takes a general inspection of the ocean. On land, however, he does not shine to so much advantage, for there he has to drag himself over the ground, head down and body and shell up. The shell has a regularly convoluted form, and is divided into cells; doubtless this it was that gave the idea to the inventor of water-tight compartments. Through these passes a tube for respiration. In the outermost partition is the owner of the ship, covered by its mantle as a captain would be with pea-jacket or sou’-wester. The animal possesses numerous tentacles, and has two great eyes, enabling it to keep a good“look-out.”The Pearly Nautilus, common in the Indian seas, is sometimes used for food. Its shell occasionally attains to a height of eight inches, and is said to be even now used by Hindoo priests as the conch with which they summon their followers to prayers. A very fine nacre is yielded, which is used in ornamental work. The Orientals make drinking-cups of it, and adorn it with engraved devices. Many a retired old sea-captain has such about his house to-day; and before the world became so familiar with Asiatic productions they were often found in the houses of the wealthy.THE COMMON NAUTILUS (Nautilus pompilius.)THE COMMON NAUTILUS (Nautilus pompilius.)The orderDibranchiatacontains six families, mostly of formidable and repulsive nature. They include cuttle-fish, squids, and argonauts, and these must mainly occupy our attention. What wonderful things have not been written about them! The French have found in them a fertile theme.“It is now,”says Michelet,“however, necessary to describe a much graver world—a world of rapine and of murder. From the very beginning, from the first appearance of life, violent death appeared; sudden refinement, useful but cruel purification of all which has[pg 144]languished, or which may linger or languish, of the slow and feeble creation whose fecundity had encumbered the globe.“In the more ancient formations of the Old World we find two murderers—a nipper and a sucker. The first is revealed to us by the imprint of the trilobite, an order now lost, the most destructive of extinct beings. The second subsists in one gigantic fragment, a beak nearly two feet in length, which was that of a great sucker, or cuttle-fish (sepia). If we may judge from such a beak, this monster—if the other parts of the body were in proportion—must have been enormous; its ventose invincible arms, of perhaps twenty or thirty feet, like those of some monstrous spider. In making war on the molluscs he remains mollusc also; that is to say, always an embryo. He presents the strange—almost ridiculous, if it were not also terrible—appearance of an embryo going to war; of a fœtus furious and cruel, soft and transparent, but tenacious, breathing with a murderous breath—for it is not for food alone that it makes war: it has the wish to destroy. Satiated, and even bursting, it still destroys. Without defensive armour, under its threatening murmurs there is no peace; its safety is to attack. It regards all creatures as a possible enemy. It throws about its long arms, or rather thongs, armed with suckers, at random.”Victor Hugo’s description of the monster, the devil-fish (or octopus), with whom poor Gilliatt has that terrible encounter, will not fade from the mind of any one who has once read it. The poet-novelist tells us that he founded his narration on facts that came under his own notice.“Near Breck-Hou, in Sark,”says he,“they show a cave where a devil-fish, a few years since, seized and drowned a lobster-fisher.... He who writes these lines has seen with his own eyes, at Sark, in the cavern called the Boutiques, apieuvre(cuttle-fish) swimming, and pursuing a bather. When captured and killed, this specimen was found to be four English feet broad, and one could count its four hundred suckers. The monster thrust them out convulsively, in the agony of death.”Hugo’s wonderful description of the monster, though often technically wrong, principally from exaggeration, must have some place here. He grasps the facts of nature with the appreciation of the artist rather than of the scientist.“It is difficult,”writes he,“for those who have not seen it to believe in the existence of the devil-fish. Compared to this creature the ancient hydras are insignifi[pg 145]cant. At times we are tempted to imagine that the vague forms which float in our dreams may encounter in the realm of the Possible attractive forces, having power to fix their lineaments, and shape living beings out of these creatures of our slumbers....“If terror were the object of its creation, nothing could be more perfect than the devil-fish.“The whale has enormous bulk, the devil-fish is comparatively small; the tararaca makes a hissing noise, the devil-fish is mute; the rhinoceros has a horn, the devil-fish has none; the scorpion has a dart, the devil-fish has no dart; the shark has sharp fins, the devil-fish has no fins; the vespertilio-bat has wings with claws, the devil-fish has no wings; the porcupine has his spines, the devil-fish has no spines; the sword-fish has his sword, the devil-fish has no sword; the torpedo has its electric spark, the devil-fish has none; the toad has its poison, the devil-fish has none; the viper has its venom, the devil-fish has no venom; the lion has its talons, the devil-fish has no talons; the griffon has its beak, the devil-fish has no beak; the crocodile has its jaws, the devil-fish has no teeth.“The devil-fish has no muscular organisation, no menacing cry, no breastplate, no horn, no dart, no claw, no tail with which to hold or bruise, no cutting fins, or wings with nails, no prickles, no sword, no electric discharge, no poison, no talons, no beak, no teeth. Yet he is, of all creatures, the most formidably armed. What, then, is the devil-fish? It is the sea-vampire.“The swimmer who, attracted by the beauty of the spot, ventures among breakers in the open sea, where the still waters hide the splendours of the deep, or in the hollows of unfrequented rocks, in unknown caverns abounding in sea-plants, testacea and crustacea, under the deep portals of the ocean, runs the risk of meeting it. If that fate should be yours, be not curious, but fly. The intruder enters there dazzled, but quits the spot in terror.“This frightful apparition, which is always possible among the rocks in the open sea, is a greyish form which undulates in the water. It is the thickness of a man’s arm, and its length nearly five feet. Its outline is ragged. Its form resembles an umbrella closed, and without handle. This irregular mass advances slowly towards you. Suddenly it opens, and eight radii issue abruptly from around a face with two eyes. These radii are alive; their undulation is like lambent flames; they resemble, when opened, the spokes of a wheel of four or five feet in diameter. A terrible expansion! It springs upon its prey.“The devil-fish harpoons its victim.“It winds around the sufferer, covering and entangling him in its long folds. Under[pg 146]neath it is yellow; above, a dull, earthy hue; nothing could render that inexplicable shade dust-coloured. Its form is spider-like, but its tints are like those of the chameleon. When irritated it becomes violet. Its most horrible characteristic is its softness. Its folds entangle; its contact paralyses.“It has an aspect like gangrened or scabrous fish. It is a monstrous embodiment of disease.“It adheres closely to its prey, and cannot be torn away—a fact which is due to its power of exhausting air. The eight antennæ, large at their roots, diminish gradually, and end in needle-like points. Underneath each of these feelers range two rows of pustules, decreasing in size, the largest ones near the head, the smaller at the extremities. Each row contains twenty-five of these. There are, therefore, fifty pustules to each feeler, and the creature possesses in the whole four hundred. These pustules are capable of acting like cupping glasses. They are cartilaginous substances, cylindrical, horny, and livid. Upon the large species they diminish gradually from the diameter of a five-franc piece to the size of a split pea. These small tubes can be thrust out and withdrawn by the animal at will. They are capable of piercing to a depth of more than one inch.“This sucking apparatus has all the regularity and delicacy of a key-board. It stands forth at one moment and disappears the next. The most perfect sensitiveness cannot equal the contractibility of these suckers—always proportioned to the internal movement of the animal and its exterior circumstances. The monster is endowed with the qualities of the sensitive plant.“This animal is the same as those which mariners call poulps, which science designatesCephalopoda, and which ancient legends call krakens. It is the English sailors who call them‘devil-fish,’and sometimes bloodsuckers. In the Channel Islands they are calledpieuvres.“They are rare at Guernsey, very small at Jersey; but near the island of Sark are numerous and very large....“When swimming the devil-fish rests, so to speak, in its sheath. It swims with all its parts drawn close. It may be likened to a sleeve sewn up with a closed fish within. The protuberance which is the head pushes the water aside, and advances with a vague undulatory movement. Its two eyes, though large, are indistinct, being of the colour of the water.“When in ambush, or seeking its prey, it retires into itself, grows smaller, and condenses itself. It is then scarcely distinguishable in the submarine twilight. At such times it looks like a mere ripple in the water. It resembles anything except a living creature. The devil-fish is crafty. When its victim is unsuspicious, it opens suddenly. A glutinous mass, endowed with a malignant will, what can be more horrible?“It is in the most beautiful azure depths of the limpid water that this hideous, voracious polyp delights. It always conceals itself—a fact which increases its terrible associations. When they are seen, it is almost invariably after they have been captured. At night, however, and particularly in the hot season, the devil-fish becomes phosphorescent.“The devil-fish not only swims, it walks. It is partly fish, partly reptile. It crawls[pg 147]upon the bed of the sea. At these times it makes use of its eight feelers, and creeps along in the fashion of a species of swift-moving caterpillar.“It has no blood, no bones, no flesh. It is soft and flabby: a skin with nothing inside. Its eight tentacles may be turned inside out, like the fingers of a glove. It has a single orifice in the centre of its radii, which appears at first to be neither the vent nor the mouth. It is, in fact, both one and the other. The orifice performs a double function. The entire creature is cold.“The jelly-fish of the Mediterranean is repulsive. Contact with that animated gelatinous substance which envelops the bather, in which the hands sink, and the nails scratch ineffectively, which can be torn without killing it, and which can be plucked off without entirely removing it—that fluid and yet tenacious creature which slips through the fingers, is disgusting; but no horror can equal the sudden apparition of the devil-fish, that Medusa with its eight serpents.”Let us examine the creatures scientifically.The bodies of these formidable animals are soft and fleshy, while the head protrudes; it is gifted with the usual organs of sense, the eyes being particularly prominent.“Not to oppress the reader with anatomical details,”says Figuier,“we shall just remark that the gaze of the cuttle-fish is decided and threatening. Its projecting eyes and golden-coloured iris are said to have something fascinating in them.”The mouth is armed with a pair of horny mandibles or beaks, not unlike those of a parrot, and is surrounded by a number of fleshy tentacles, provided, in most species, with numerous suckers, and even claws. The arms or tentacles serve for all purposes—locomotion, swimming, offence, and defence. The suckers occupy all theinternalsurface of the eight tentacular arms, andeacharm carries about 240 of them.“The cuttle-fish,”says the writer last quoted,“would be at no loss to reply to the question of the Don Diego of Corneille—“‘Rodrique, as-tu du cœur?’for they have three hearts.”After that it need not be stated that they possess respiratory organs and a blood circulation. Man and woman can blush and change colour;so can the cuttle-fish; but it turns darker instead of paler, and its emotion has another effect—numerous little warts suddenly appear on its surface.In spite of the exaggerations of some writers, the size of many of these animals is very large, as has been attested by trustworthy authorities. Mr. Beale,39engaged in searching for shells on the rocks of Bonin Island, was seized by one which measured across its expanded arms four feet, the body not being larger than a clenched hand. He describes its cold, slimy grasp as sickening. His tormentor was killed by a cut from a large knife, but its arms had to be released bit by bit. In the museum of Montpellier there is one six feet long. Péron, a French naturalist, saw in the Australian seas one eight feet long. The travellers Quoy and Gaimard picked up in the Atlantic Ocean the skeleton of an enormous mollusc, which, according to their calculations, must have weighed 200 lbs. In the College of Surgeons a beak or mandible of a cuttle-[pg 149]fish is preserved, which is larger than a human hand. In 1853 a gigantic specimen was stranded on the coast of Jutland, which furnished many barrow-loads of flesh and other organic matter.THE OCTOPUS (Octopus vulgaris.)THE OCTOPUS (Octopus vulgaris.)Who has not heard of the kraken, the terror of the northern seas? Naturalists and others long ago gave credence to the assertions of certain Scandinavian writers who believed themselves in the existence of a great sea-monster capable of arresting and annihilating vessels. This kraken was made to embrace a three-masted vessel in its arms.“If,”says laughing De Montfort,“my kraken takes with them, I shall make it extend its arms to both shores of the Straits of Gibraltar.”A Bishop of Bergen assured the world that a whole regiment could easily manœuvre on the back of the kraken. All this, however, probably arose from the observation of some extraordinarily large specimen. An apparently well-authenticated fact is the following, vouched for by a French naval officer, and the then French Consul at the Canaries.The steam corvetteAlectonfell in, between Teneriffe and Madeira, with a sea-monster of the cuttle kind, said to be fifty feet long, without counting its eight arms; it had two fleshy fins; they estimated its weight at close on two tons. The commander allowed shots to be fired at it, one of which evidently hit the animal in a vital part, for the waves were stained with blood. A strong musky odour was noticed. This is characteristic of many of the cephalopods.“The musket shots not having produced the desired results, harpoons were employed, but they took no hold on the soft, impalpable flesh of the marine monster. When it escaped from the harpoon, it dived under the ship, and came up again at the other side. They succeeded at last in getting the harpoon to bite, and in passing a bowline hitch round the posterior part of the animal. But when they attempted to hoist it out of the water the rope penetrated deeply into the flesh, and separated it into two parts, the head with the arms and tentacles dropping into the sea and making off, while the fins and posterior parts were brought on board: they weighed about forty pounds.”The crew wished to pursue it in a boat, but the commander refused, fearing that they might be capsized.“It is probable,”says M. Moquin-Tandon,40“that this colossal mollusc was sick, or exhausted by a recent struggle with some other monster of the deep.”[pg 150]Most of the cephalopods secrete a blackish fluid, which they can eject in moments of danger, and thus cloud themselves in obscurity. This fluid was known to the Romans, who made ink from it. It is the leading ingredient in Indian ink and sepia to-day. A story is told of an English officer abroad who went out just before dinner-time for a walk on the beach, where he came across a cuttle-fish sheltering under a hollow rock. For a time each watched the other in mute astonishment, but the cuttle-fish had the best of it in the end. The aroused animal suddenly ejected a fountain of its black fluid over the officer’s trousers, which was the more annoying inasmuch as they were of white duck!The bone of the cuttle, powdered, has long been used, in combination with chalk, &c., as a dentifrice, so that the“monstrum horrendum”of Virgil is of some use in the world.The sixth family of theDibranchiatacontains only one genus,Argonauta, of which the paper nautilus is a pleasing example.“Floating gracefully on the surface of the sea, trimming its tiny sail to the breeze, just sufficient to ruffle the surface of the waves, behold the exquisite living shallop! The elegant little bark which thus plays with the current is no work of human hands, but a child of nature: it is the argonaut, whose tribes, decked in a thousand brilliant shades of colour, are wanderers of the night in innumerable swarms on the ocean’s surface!”The Greek and Roman poets saw in it an elegant model of the ship which the skill and audacity of the man constructed who first braved the fury of the waves. To meet it was considered a happy omen.“O fish justly dear to navigators!”sang Oppian;“thy presence announces winds soft and friendly: thou bringest the calm, and thou art the sign of it!”Aristotle and Pliny both gave careful descriptions of it. In India the shell fetches a great price, and women consider it a fine ornament. Dancing-girls carry them, and gracefully wave them over their heads.The paper nautilus has more than its little sail to assist its progression; it is able to eject water against the waves, and so move onward. They are timid and cautious creatures, live in families, and are almost always found far out at sea: they never approach the shore.

The Univalves—A Higher Scale of Animal—The Gasteropoda—Limpets—Used for Basins in the Straits of Magellan—Spiral and Turret Shells—The Cowries—The Mitre Shells—The Purpuras—Tyrian Purple—The Whelk—The Marine Trumpet—The Winged-feet Molluscs—The Cephalopodous Molluscs—The Nautilus—Relic of a Noble Family—The Pearly Nautilus and its Uses—The Cuttle-fish—Michelet’s Comments—Hugo’s Actual Experiences—Gilliatt and his Combat—A Grand Description—The Devil-Fish—The Cuttle-Fish of Science—A Brute with Three Hearts—Actual Examples contrasted with the Kraken—A Monster nearly Captured—Indian Ink and Sepia—The Argonauta—The Paper Nautilus.

And now, the bivalves having had their turn, let us direct our attention to a higher class of animals, to which nature has been more generous. They, unlike the first-named molluscs, have heads.“This head,”says Figuier,“is still carried humbly; it is not yetos sublime dedit; it is drawn along an inch or so from the ground, and in no respect resembles the proud and magnificent organ which crowns and adorns the body of the greater and more powerfully organised animals.”The Acephalous, or“headless,”must now make way for the Cephalous, or headed mollusca. These again are divided by the scientists into three great classes, theGasteropoda,Pteropoda, andCephalopoda.

The title of theGasteropodais derived from two Greek words signifyingbellyandfoot; theraison d’êtreof that title being that these animals progress by means of flattened discs placed under their bellies. The snail, slug, and cowrie, are leading types of this class.

In thePteropoda(from Greek words signifyingwingandfoot) locomotion is effected by membranous fins or wings.

Lastly, theCephalopodaare so called because they have prominently, as a class,[pg 140]heads and feet, locomotion being effected by a set of tentacles (arms or legs, as you will). The cuttle-fish and devil-fish (or octopus) are types of this important series of animals.

THE LIMPET (Patella).THE LIMPET (Patella).

THE LIMPET (Patella).

The vastness of the subject precludes the possibility of details, and for evident reasons a few of those inhabiting the sea itself can only be considered here. Among the“Gasteropods,”as they are familiarly termed, the limpets constitute a numerous family. The scientific namePatella(a deep dish or knee-cap) was given to them by Linnæus, the form of their shells fully warranting the title. Some of them are oval, others circular; but all terminate in an elliptic cone. Otherwise they are varied enough, some being smooth, but others having ridges or scales on the outer surface, the edges being often dentated. Their colours are very varied. The head of the animal itself has two horns and two eyes; its foot is a thick fleshy disc, and when it means to hold on to a rock we all know how difficult it is to dislodge it, for the said foot becomes a kind of sucker. Some of those from the coast of Africa and the Antilles, &c., have elegant forms, as witnessPatella umbella,P. granatina,P. longicosta, and others. Although often eaten, they are very tough and indigestible. In Southern seas they attain to a great size; for example, in the Straits of Magellan the natives use for culinary purposes species as large as a slop-basin.

TURBO.TURBO.

TURBO.

TROCHUS.TROCHUS.

TROCHUS.

Well-known shells are also those of many species ofTrochus; the spiral shell has literally aspiral animalinside it. So also some of the fifty species ofTurbo, which are often marbled in beautiful colours outwardly and superbly nacred within. So again the winding pyramidal shells of theTurritella, many of which are found in every sea. And once more, what mantelpiece of old was not adorned with a pair or more of cowrie shells (Cypræ), natives of every sea! They range from the little whitish money cowrie, actually used in place of coin in parts of Africa to-day, to handsome shells of large size. The animal which inhabits this shell is elongated, and has a head with a pair of long tentacles, each having a very large eye. The foot, as one example specially will show (Cypræ tigris) is an oval sucker, capable of great tenacity.

THE COWRIE (Cypræa tigris).THE COWRIE (Cypræa tigris).

THE COWRIE (Cypræa tigris).

In every conchologist’s collection will be found some of the mitre shells, so called from their resemblance to a bishop’s mitre, and principally obtained from Indian and Australian seas. So, again, theVoluta, with their oval and graceful forms. The animal inhabiting the latter has a very large head, provided with two tentacles and a mouth furnished with hooked teeth. The foot is very large and projects from the whole mouth of the[pg 141]shell, which is often ornamented with gay colours and varied marks and flutings. So also theConusgenus, the title of which sufficiently indicates its general form, and some of the shells of which command high prices. These generally tropical shells are more uniform in shape than many just mentioned, but they are most beautifully varied in colour and minor details. The“residents”have large heads withsnouts, while their mouths are furnished with horny teeth. Every good collection, too, is sure to contain examples of the genusCassis, principally from the Indian Ocean.

VOLUTA.VOLUTA.

VOLUTA.

CONUS.CONUS.

CONUS.

Among the one-shell molluscs the Purpuras bear an honoured name; for did they not furnish the Greeks and Romans with the brilliant purple colouring matter which was reserved for the mantles of princes and patricians! The genusPurpurais characterised as possessing an oval shell, thick pointed. The animal itself has a large head, furnished with two swollen conical tentacles close together, and bearing an eye towards the middle of their external side. By means of a large foot they creep about in pursuit of bivalves. The larger and more important kinds come from the warmer seas, especially those surrounding the West Indies and Australia.

The purple mentioned in the Scriptures in connection with fine linen was that of the Phœnicians, and came from Tyre. Sir William Wilde discovered not far from the ruins of that city several circular excavations in a rocky cliff, and in these he found a great number of crushed and broken shells of Purpura. He believed that they had been bruised in great masses by the Tyrian workmen for the manufacture of the dye. Shells of the same species (Murex trunculus) are commonly found on the same coast at the present day. Aristotle says that the Tyrian dye was taken from two molluscs inhabiting the Phœnician coasts and seas. According to the great Greek philosopher, one of these had a very large shell, consisting of seven turns of the spire, studded with spines, and terminating in a strong beak; the other had a much smaller shell. It is thought that the latter is to be found in thePurpura lapillus, which abounds in the English Channel. Reaumur and Duhamel both obtained a purple colour from it, which they applied as a dye, and found permanent. The real secret of the production of the Tyrian purple remains undiscovered to-day.

PURPURA LAPILLUS.PURPURA LAPILLUS.

PURPURA LAPILLUS.

The genusBuccinumresembles that of thePurpurain many respects. The common[pg 142]whelk belongs to the series. Thus one of the humblest of our shell-fish is allied to the animal from which a nearly priceless dye was once obtained.

MUREX.MUREX.

MUREX.

HARPA.HARPA.

HARPA.

CLEODORA.CLEODORA.

CLEODORA.

The genusHarpaincludes some beautifully marked and coloured shells, of whichH. ventricosais an attractive example. These are chiefly found in the Indian Ocean. The Rock Shells (Murex) abound in every sea, but are finer and more branching in the warmer ones. They are remarkable for bright colours and fantastic forms. The shell is oblong with a long spire attached, its surface often covered with rows of branching spines. The genusTriton, of which about one hundred species are known, is ranged with the genusMurex, on account of points of similarity. The Marine Trumpet (Triton variegatum) which sometimes attains a length of sixteen inches, is a fine example. The genusStrombusincludes among its species the great roughly ornamental shells, often used for grottoes or rockeries. Some of the streets of Vera Cruz are said to be paved with them. Oddest and most remarkable of all the marine shells to be found in the naturalist’s collection are those of the genusPteroceras. They are of fresh and brilliantly shaded colours.

STROMBUS.STROMBUS.

STROMBUS.

TRITON.TRITON.

TRITON.

And now to thePteropoda, practically“winged feet”molluscs, the position of which in scientific nomenclature many think unsatisfactory. This is, however, of little consequence to the general reader. These curious little molluscs can pass through the deep blue seas they usually inhabit rapidly, reminding us strongly of the movements of a butterfly or some other winged insect. They can“ascend to the surface very suddenly, turn themselves in a determinate space, or rather swim without appearing to change their place, while sustaining themselves at the same height.”“If,”continues Figuier,“anything alarms them, they fold up their flappers and descend to such a depth in their watery world as will give them the security they seek. Thus they pass their lives in the open sea far from any other shelter except that yielded by the gulf weed and other algæ. In appearance and habits these small and sometimes microscopic creatures resemble the fry of some other forms of mollusca. They literally swarm both in tropical and arctic seas; and are sometimes so numerous as to colour the ocean for leagues. They are the principal food of whales and sea-birds in high latitudes, rarely approaching the coast. Only one or two species have been accidentally taken on our shores, and those evidently driven thither by currents into which they have been entangled, or by tempests which have stirred the waters with a power beyond theirs. Dr. Leach states that in 1811, during a tour to the Orkneys, he observed on the rocks of the Isle of Staffa several mutilated specimens ofClio borealis. Some days after, having borrowed a large shrimp net, and rowing along the coast of Mull, when the sea, which had been extremely stormy, had become calm, he succeeded in catching one alive, which is now in the British Museum.”Professor Huxley has told us that they have auditory organs, are sensible of light and heat, and probably of odours, but that they possess very imperfect eyes and tentacles. They have respiratory organs, hearts and livers, and are undeniably social and gregarious, swarming together in great numbers.

We now approach the highest class of the mollusca—on paper, only, be it observed, for in actual life most of them are either nearly unapproachable, or, at all events, are most undesirable acquaintances.

“The cephalopodous molluscs,”says Figuier, a writer who in descriptive powers is an artistic scientist and a scientific artist,“are indeed highly organised for molluscs, for they possess in a high degree the sense of sight, hearing, and touch. They appear with the earlier animals which present themselves on the earth, and they are numerous even now, although they are far from playing the important part that was assigned to them in the early ages of organic life upon our planet. The Ammonites and Belemnites existed by thousands among the beings which peopled the seas during the secondary epoch in the history of the globe.”The Cephalopods were divided by Professor Owen into two great orders,Tetrabranchiata, or animals having four gills, and theDibranchiata, having two gills. The first order has at this epoch but one genus, that ofNautilus. This group of animals belongs emphatically to the earlier ages of our globe,“is becoming gradually extinct, and presents in our days only some species very rare and few, especially when we compare them with the prodigious numbers of these beings which animated the seas of the ancient world.”It is a fact that the empty shells of the nautilus are more commonly found floating on the ocean than those which are inhabited. No doubt the living nautilus falls a prey either to larger marine animals, or, likely enough, to sea-fowl. Is it not also possible that the lone animal, knowing the fate of its ancestors, and how they lie buried in barren strata, overwhelmed with melancholy apprehensions of his own future, jumps overboard and drowns himself? This suggestion isnotto be found among the recognised authorities.

On the sea this scion of a decayed family is a graceful object, and in fine weather projects his head and tentacles, and takes a general inspection of the ocean. On land, however, he does not shine to so much advantage, for there he has to drag himself over the ground, head down and body and shell up. The shell has a regularly convoluted form, and is divided into cells; doubtless this it was that gave the idea to the inventor of water-tight compartments. Through these passes a tube for respiration. In the outermost partition is the owner of the ship, covered by its mantle as a captain would be with pea-jacket or sou’-wester. The animal possesses numerous tentacles, and has two great eyes, enabling it to keep a good“look-out.”

The Pearly Nautilus, common in the Indian seas, is sometimes used for food. Its shell occasionally attains to a height of eight inches, and is said to be even now used by Hindoo priests as the conch with which they summon their followers to prayers. A very fine nacre is yielded, which is used in ornamental work. The Orientals make drinking-cups of it, and adorn it with engraved devices. Many a retired old sea-captain has such about his house to-day; and before the world became so familiar with Asiatic productions they were often found in the houses of the wealthy.

THE COMMON NAUTILUS (Nautilus pompilius.)THE COMMON NAUTILUS (Nautilus pompilius.)

THE COMMON NAUTILUS (Nautilus pompilius.)

The orderDibranchiatacontains six families, mostly of formidable and repulsive nature. They include cuttle-fish, squids, and argonauts, and these must mainly occupy our attention. What wonderful things have not been written about them! The French have found in them a fertile theme.

“It is now,”says Michelet,“however, necessary to describe a much graver world—a world of rapine and of murder. From the very beginning, from the first appearance of life, violent death appeared; sudden refinement, useful but cruel purification of all which has[pg 144]languished, or which may linger or languish, of the slow and feeble creation whose fecundity had encumbered the globe.

“In the more ancient formations of the Old World we find two murderers—a nipper and a sucker. The first is revealed to us by the imprint of the trilobite, an order now lost, the most destructive of extinct beings. The second subsists in one gigantic fragment, a beak nearly two feet in length, which was that of a great sucker, or cuttle-fish (sepia). If we may judge from such a beak, this monster—if the other parts of the body were in proportion—must have been enormous; its ventose invincible arms, of perhaps twenty or thirty feet, like those of some monstrous spider. In making war on the molluscs he remains mollusc also; that is to say, always an embryo. He presents the strange—almost ridiculous, if it were not also terrible—appearance of an embryo going to war; of a fœtus furious and cruel, soft and transparent, but tenacious, breathing with a murderous breath—for it is not for food alone that it makes war: it has the wish to destroy. Satiated, and even bursting, it still destroys. Without defensive armour, under its threatening murmurs there is no peace; its safety is to attack. It regards all creatures as a possible enemy. It throws about its long arms, or rather thongs, armed with suckers, at random.”

Victor Hugo’s description of the monster, the devil-fish (or octopus), with whom poor Gilliatt has that terrible encounter, will not fade from the mind of any one who has once read it. The poet-novelist tells us that he founded his narration on facts that came under his own notice.“Near Breck-Hou, in Sark,”says he,“they show a cave where a devil-fish, a few years since, seized and drowned a lobster-fisher.... He who writes these lines has seen with his own eyes, at Sark, in the cavern called the Boutiques, apieuvre(cuttle-fish) swimming, and pursuing a bather. When captured and killed, this specimen was found to be four English feet broad, and one could count its four hundred suckers. The monster thrust them out convulsively, in the agony of death.”

Hugo’s wonderful description of the monster, though often technically wrong, principally from exaggeration, must have some place here. He grasps the facts of nature with the appreciation of the artist rather than of the scientist.

“It is difficult,”writes he,“for those who have not seen it to believe in the existence of the devil-fish. Compared to this creature the ancient hydras are insignifi[pg 145]cant. At times we are tempted to imagine that the vague forms which float in our dreams may encounter in the realm of the Possible attractive forces, having power to fix their lineaments, and shape living beings out of these creatures of our slumbers....

“If terror were the object of its creation, nothing could be more perfect than the devil-fish.

“The whale has enormous bulk, the devil-fish is comparatively small; the tararaca makes a hissing noise, the devil-fish is mute; the rhinoceros has a horn, the devil-fish has none; the scorpion has a dart, the devil-fish has no dart; the shark has sharp fins, the devil-fish has no fins; the vespertilio-bat has wings with claws, the devil-fish has no wings; the porcupine has his spines, the devil-fish has no spines; the sword-fish has his sword, the devil-fish has no sword; the torpedo has its electric spark, the devil-fish has none; the toad has its poison, the devil-fish has none; the viper has its venom, the devil-fish has no venom; the lion has its talons, the devil-fish has no talons; the griffon has its beak, the devil-fish has no beak; the crocodile has its jaws, the devil-fish has no teeth.

“The devil-fish has no muscular organisation, no menacing cry, no breastplate, no horn, no dart, no claw, no tail with which to hold or bruise, no cutting fins, or wings with nails, no prickles, no sword, no electric discharge, no poison, no talons, no beak, no teeth. Yet he is, of all creatures, the most formidably armed. What, then, is the devil-fish? It is the sea-vampire.

“The swimmer who, attracted by the beauty of the spot, ventures among breakers in the open sea, where the still waters hide the splendours of the deep, or in the hollows of unfrequented rocks, in unknown caverns abounding in sea-plants, testacea and crustacea, under the deep portals of the ocean, runs the risk of meeting it. If that fate should be yours, be not curious, but fly. The intruder enters there dazzled, but quits the spot in terror.

“This frightful apparition, which is always possible among the rocks in the open sea, is a greyish form which undulates in the water. It is the thickness of a man’s arm, and its length nearly five feet. Its outline is ragged. Its form resembles an umbrella closed, and without handle. This irregular mass advances slowly towards you. Suddenly it opens, and eight radii issue abruptly from around a face with two eyes. These radii are alive; their undulation is like lambent flames; they resemble, when opened, the spokes of a wheel of four or five feet in diameter. A terrible expansion! It springs upon its prey.

“The devil-fish harpoons its victim.

“It winds around the sufferer, covering and entangling him in its long folds. Under[pg 146]neath it is yellow; above, a dull, earthy hue; nothing could render that inexplicable shade dust-coloured. Its form is spider-like, but its tints are like those of the chameleon. When irritated it becomes violet. Its most horrible characteristic is its softness. Its folds entangle; its contact paralyses.

“It has an aspect like gangrened or scabrous fish. It is a monstrous embodiment of disease.

“It adheres closely to its prey, and cannot be torn away—a fact which is due to its power of exhausting air. The eight antennæ, large at their roots, diminish gradually, and end in needle-like points. Underneath each of these feelers range two rows of pustules, decreasing in size, the largest ones near the head, the smaller at the extremities. Each row contains twenty-five of these. There are, therefore, fifty pustules to each feeler, and the creature possesses in the whole four hundred. These pustules are capable of acting like cupping glasses. They are cartilaginous substances, cylindrical, horny, and livid. Upon the large species they diminish gradually from the diameter of a five-franc piece to the size of a split pea. These small tubes can be thrust out and withdrawn by the animal at will. They are capable of piercing to a depth of more than one inch.

“This sucking apparatus has all the regularity and delicacy of a key-board. It stands forth at one moment and disappears the next. The most perfect sensitiveness cannot equal the contractibility of these suckers—always proportioned to the internal movement of the animal and its exterior circumstances. The monster is endowed with the qualities of the sensitive plant.

“This animal is the same as those which mariners call poulps, which science designatesCephalopoda, and which ancient legends call krakens. It is the English sailors who call them‘devil-fish,’and sometimes bloodsuckers. In the Channel Islands they are calledpieuvres.

“They are rare at Guernsey, very small at Jersey; but near the island of Sark are numerous and very large....

“When swimming the devil-fish rests, so to speak, in its sheath. It swims with all its parts drawn close. It may be likened to a sleeve sewn up with a closed fish within. The protuberance which is the head pushes the water aside, and advances with a vague undulatory movement. Its two eyes, though large, are indistinct, being of the colour of the water.

“When in ambush, or seeking its prey, it retires into itself, grows smaller, and condenses itself. It is then scarcely distinguishable in the submarine twilight. At such times it looks like a mere ripple in the water. It resembles anything except a living creature. The devil-fish is crafty. When its victim is unsuspicious, it opens suddenly. A glutinous mass, endowed with a malignant will, what can be more horrible?

“It is in the most beautiful azure depths of the limpid water that this hideous, voracious polyp delights. It always conceals itself—a fact which increases its terrible associations. When they are seen, it is almost invariably after they have been captured. At night, however, and particularly in the hot season, the devil-fish becomes phosphorescent.

“The devil-fish not only swims, it walks. It is partly fish, partly reptile. It crawls[pg 147]upon the bed of the sea. At these times it makes use of its eight feelers, and creeps along in the fashion of a species of swift-moving caterpillar.

“It has no blood, no bones, no flesh. It is soft and flabby: a skin with nothing inside. Its eight tentacles may be turned inside out, like the fingers of a glove. It has a single orifice in the centre of its radii, which appears at first to be neither the vent nor the mouth. It is, in fact, both one and the other. The orifice performs a double function. The entire creature is cold.

“The jelly-fish of the Mediterranean is repulsive. Contact with that animated gelatinous substance which envelops the bather, in which the hands sink, and the nails scratch ineffectively, which can be torn without killing it, and which can be plucked off without entirely removing it—that fluid and yet tenacious creature which slips through the fingers, is disgusting; but no horror can equal the sudden apparition of the devil-fish, that Medusa with its eight serpents.”

Let us examine the creatures scientifically.

The bodies of these formidable animals are soft and fleshy, while the head protrudes; it is gifted with the usual organs of sense, the eyes being particularly prominent.“Not to oppress the reader with anatomical details,”says Figuier,“we shall just remark that the gaze of the cuttle-fish is decided and threatening. Its projecting eyes and golden-coloured iris are said to have something fascinating in them.”The mouth is armed with a pair of horny mandibles or beaks, not unlike those of a parrot, and is surrounded by a number of fleshy tentacles, provided, in most species, with numerous suckers, and even claws. The arms or tentacles serve for all purposes—locomotion, swimming, offence, and defence. The suckers occupy all theinternalsurface of the eight tentacular arms, andeacharm carries about 240 of them.“The cuttle-fish,”says the writer last quoted,“would be at no loss to reply to the question of the Don Diego of Corneille—

“‘Rodrique, as-tu du cœur?’

for they have three hearts.”After that it need not be stated that they possess respiratory organs and a blood circulation. Man and woman can blush and change colour;so can the cuttle-fish; but it turns darker instead of paler, and its emotion has another effect—numerous little warts suddenly appear on its surface.

In spite of the exaggerations of some writers, the size of many of these animals is very large, as has been attested by trustworthy authorities. Mr. Beale,39engaged in searching for shells on the rocks of Bonin Island, was seized by one which measured across its expanded arms four feet, the body not being larger than a clenched hand. He describes its cold, slimy grasp as sickening. His tormentor was killed by a cut from a large knife, but its arms had to be released bit by bit. In the museum of Montpellier there is one six feet long. Péron, a French naturalist, saw in the Australian seas one eight feet long. The travellers Quoy and Gaimard picked up in the Atlantic Ocean the skeleton of an enormous mollusc, which, according to their calculations, must have weighed 200 lbs. In the College of Surgeons a beak or mandible of a cuttle-[pg 149]fish is preserved, which is larger than a human hand. In 1853 a gigantic specimen was stranded on the coast of Jutland, which furnished many barrow-loads of flesh and other organic matter.

THE OCTOPUS (Octopus vulgaris.)THE OCTOPUS (Octopus vulgaris.)

THE OCTOPUS (Octopus vulgaris.)

Who has not heard of the kraken, the terror of the northern seas? Naturalists and others long ago gave credence to the assertions of certain Scandinavian writers who believed themselves in the existence of a great sea-monster capable of arresting and annihilating vessels. This kraken was made to embrace a three-masted vessel in its arms.“If,”says laughing De Montfort,“my kraken takes with them, I shall make it extend its arms to both shores of the Straits of Gibraltar.”A Bishop of Bergen assured the world that a whole regiment could easily manœuvre on the back of the kraken. All this, however, probably arose from the observation of some extraordinarily large specimen. An apparently well-authenticated fact is the following, vouched for by a French naval officer, and the then French Consul at the Canaries.

The steam corvetteAlectonfell in, between Teneriffe and Madeira, with a sea-monster of the cuttle kind, said to be fifty feet long, without counting its eight arms; it had two fleshy fins; they estimated its weight at close on two tons. The commander allowed shots to be fired at it, one of which evidently hit the animal in a vital part, for the waves were stained with blood. A strong musky odour was noticed. This is characteristic of many of the cephalopods.

“The musket shots not having produced the desired results, harpoons were employed, but they took no hold on the soft, impalpable flesh of the marine monster. When it escaped from the harpoon, it dived under the ship, and came up again at the other side. They succeeded at last in getting the harpoon to bite, and in passing a bowline hitch round the posterior part of the animal. But when they attempted to hoist it out of the water the rope penetrated deeply into the flesh, and separated it into two parts, the head with the arms and tentacles dropping into the sea and making off, while the fins and posterior parts were brought on board: they weighed about forty pounds.”The crew wished to pursue it in a boat, but the commander refused, fearing that they might be capsized.“It is probable,”says M. Moquin-Tandon,40“that this colossal mollusc was sick, or exhausted by a recent struggle with some other monster of the deep.”

Most of the cephalopods secrete a blackish fluid, which they can eject in moments of danger, and thus cloud themselves in obscurity. This fluid was known to the Romans, who made ink from it. It is the leading ingredient in Indian ink and sepia to-day. A story is told of an English officer abroad who went out just before dinner-time for a walk on the beach, where he came across a cuttle-fish sheltering under a hollow rock. For a time each watched the other in mute astonishment, but the cuttle-fish had the best of it in the end. The aroused animal suddenly ejected a fountain of its black fluid over the officer’s trousers, which was the more annoying inasmuch as they were of white duck!

The bone of the cuttle, powdered, has long been used, in combination with chalk, &c., as a dentifrice, so that the“monstrum horrendum”of Virgil is of some use in the world.

The sixth family of theDibranchiatacontains only one genus,Argonauta, of which the paper nautilus is a pleasing example.“Floating gracefully on the surface of the sea, trimming its tiny sail to the breeze, just sufficient to ruffle the surface of the waves, behold the exquisite living shallop! The elegant little bark which thus plays with the current is no work of human hands, but a child of nature: it is the argonaut, whose tribes, decked in a thousand brilliant shades of colour, are wanderers of the night in innumerable swarms on the ocean’s surface!”The Greek and Roman poets saw in it an elegant model of the ship which the skill and audacity of the man constructed who first braved the fury of the waves. To meet it was considered a happy omen.“O fish justly dear to navigators!”sang Oppian;“thy presence announces winds soft and friendly: thou bringest the calm, and thou art the sign of it!”Aristotle and Pliny both gave careful descriptions of it. In India the shell fetches a great price, and women consider it a fine ornament. Dancing-girls carry them, and gracefully wave them over their heads.

The paper nautilus has more than its little sail to assist its progression; it is able to eject water against the waves, and so move onward. They are timid and cautious creatures, live in families, and are almost always found far out at sea: they never approach the shore.

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