1868, a valuable series of observations on the mammals of Greenland,
made during his voyages to the Spitzbergen, Iceland, and Jan Mayen Seas,
and along the eastern and western shores of Davis's Strait and Baffin's
Bay to near the mouth of Smith's Sound, remarks, in a chapter on the
Right whale (_Balaena mysticetus_):--"The 'blowing,' so familiar a
feature of the _Cetacea_, but especially of the _Mysticetus_ is, quite
analogous to the breathing of the higher mammals, and the blow-holes are
the homologues of the nostrils. It is most erroneously stated that the
whale ejects water from the blow-holes. I have been many times only a
few feet from a whale when 'blowing,' and, though purposely observing
it, could never see that it ejected from its nostrils anything but the
ordinary breath--a fact which might almost have been deduced from
analogy. In the cold arctic air this breath is generally condensed, and
falls upon those close at hand in the form of a dense spray which may
have led seamen to suppose that this vapour was originally ejected in
the form of water. Occasionally, when the whale blows just as it is
rising out of or sinking in the sea, a little of the superincumbent
water may be forced upwards by the column of breath. When the whale is
wounded in the lungs, or in any of the blood-vessels immediately
supplying them, blood, as might be expected, is ejected in the
death-throes along with the breath. When the whaleman sees his prey
'spouting red,' he concludes that its end is not far distant; it is then
mortally wounded."
Captain F. C. Hall, the commander of the unfortunate "Polaris"
Expedition, thus describes, in his 'Life with the Esquimaux,' the spout
of a whale:--"What this blowing is like," he says, "may be described by
asking if the reader has ever seen the smoke produced by the firing of
an old-fashioned flint-lock. If so, then he may understand the 'blow' of
a whale--a flash in the pan and all is over."
Captain Scammon, an experienced American whaling captain, who, like
Scoresby, could wield well both harpoon and pen, in his fine work on
'The Marine Mammals of the North-Western Coast of America,' writes to
the same effect.
Mr. Herman Melville, who is not a naturalist, but has served before the
mast in a sperm-whaler and borne his part in all the hardships and
dangers of the chase, writes, in his remarkable book, 'The Whale':--"As
for this 'whale-spout' you might almost stand in it, and yet be
undecided as to what it is precisely. Nor is it at all prudent for the
hunter to be over curious respecting it. For, even when coming into
slight contact with the outer vapoury shreds of the jet, which will
often happen, your skin will feverishly smart from the acrimony of the
thing so touching you. And I know one who, coming into still closer
contact with the spout--whether with some scientific object in view or
otherwise I cannot say--the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm.
Wherefore, among whalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous; they try to
evade it. I have heard it said, and I do not much doubt it, that if the
jet were fairly spouted into your eyes it would blind you."
The only other eye-witness I will cite is Mr. Bartlett, of the
Zoological Gardens, whose experience and accuracy as an observer of the
habits of animals is unsurpassed. He spent an autumn holiday in
accompanying the late Mr. Frank Buckland and his colleagues, Messrs.
Walpole and Young, in a tour of inquiry into the condition of the
herring fishery in Scotland. When the commissioners left Peterhead, he
remained there for a few days as the guest of Captain David Gray, of the
steam whaler, "Eclipse," and as it was reported that large whales had
been seen in the offing, his host invited him to go in search of them,
and pay them a visit in his steam-launch. When about twelve miles out,
they saw the whales, which were "finners," at a distance of four or five
miles. Fourteen were counted--all large ones--some of which were seventy
feet in length. On approaching them the captain shut off steam, and the
launch was allowed to float in amongst them. So close were they to the
boat that it would not have been difficult to jump upon the back of one
of them had that been desirable. Mr. Bartlett tells me that he was
greatly astonished by the immense force of the sudden outrush of air
from their blow-holes, and the noise by which it was accompanied. He
believes that the blast was strong enough to blow a man off the spiracle
if he were seated on it. He authorizes me to say that having seen and
watched these whales under such favourable circumstances, he entirely
agrees with all that I have here written concerning the so-called
"spout." The volume of hot, vaporous breath expelled is enormous, and
this is accompanied by no small quantity of water, forced up by it when
the blow-hole is opened below the surface.
An effect similar in appearance to the whale's spout is produced by the
breathing of the hippopotamus. When this great beast opens its nostrils
beneath the surface, water and spray are driven and scattered upward by
the force of the air, but, of course, do not issue from the nasal
passages. I have, also, seen this effect produced, though in a less
degree, by the breathing of sea-lions.
I repeat, therefore, that not a drop of sea-water enters or passes out
of the blow-hole of a whale. If the spiracle valve were in a condition
to allow it to do so the animal would soon be drowned. Everyone knows
the extreme irritation and the horrible feeling of suffocation caused to
a human being, whilst eating or drinking, by a crumb or a little liquid
"going the wrong way"--that is, being accidentally drawn to the
air-passages instead of passing to the oesophagus. If water were to
enter the bronchi of a whale it would instantly produce similar
discomfort.
The neck of a popular error is hard to break; but it is time that one
so palpable as that concerning the "spouting" of whales should cease to
be promulgated and disseminated by fanciful illustrations of instructive
books.
THE "SAILING" OF THE NAUTILUS.
One of the prettiest fables of the sea is that relating to the Paper
Nautilus, the constructor and inhabitant of the delicate and beautiful
shell which looks as if it were made of ivory no thicker than a sheet of
writing paper.
[Illustration: FIG. 27.--THE PAPER NAUTILUS (_Argonauta argo_) SAILING.]
It is an old belief that in calm weather it rises from the bottom of
the sea, and, elevating its two broadly-expanded arms, spreads to the
gentle air, as a sail, the membrane, light as a spider's web, by which
they are united; and that, seated in its boat-like shell, it thus floats
over the smooth surface of the ocean, steering and paddling with its
other arms. Should storm arise or danger threaten, its masts and sail
are lowered, its oars laid in, and the frail craft, filling with water,
sinks gently beneath the waves.
When and where this picturesque idea originated I am unable to discover.
It dates far back beyond the range of history; for Aristotle mentions
it, and, unfortunately, sanctioned it. With the weight of his honoured
name in its favour, this fallacy has maintained its place in popular
belief, even to our own times; for the mantle of the great father of
natural history, who was generally so marvellously correct, fell on none
of his successors; Pliny, and AElian, and the tribe of compilers who
succeeded them, having been more concerned to make their histories
sensational than to verify their statements.
Naturally, the Paper Nautilus has been the subject of many a poet's
verses. Oppian wrote of it in his 'Halieutics':--
"Sail-fish in secret, silent deeps reside,
In shape and nature to the preke[75] allied;
Close in their concave shells their bodies wrap,
Avoid the waves and every storm escape.
But not to mirksome depths alone confined;
When pleasing calms have stilled the sighing wind,
Curious to know what seas above contain,
They leave the dark recesses of the main;
Now, wanton, to the changing surface haste,
View clearer skies, and the pure welkin taste.
But slow they, cautious, rise, and, prudent, fear
The upper region of the watery sphere;
Backward they mount, and as the stream o'erflows,
Their convex shells to pressing floods oppose.
Conscious, they know that, should they forward move,
O'erwhelming waves would sink them from above,
Fill the void space, and with the rushing weight,
Force down th' inconstants to their former seat.
When, first arrived, they feel the stronger blast,
They lie supine and skim the liquid waste.
The natural barks out-do all human art
When skilful floaters play the sailor's part.
Two feet they upward raise, and steady keep;
These are the masts and rigging of the ship:
A membrane stretch'd between supplies the sail,
Bends from the masts, and swells before the gale.
Two other feet hang paddling on each side,
And serve for oars to row and helm to guide.
'Tis thus they sail, pleased with the wanton game,
The fish, the sailor, and the ship, the same.
But when the swimmers dread some dangers near
The sportive pleasure yields to stronger fear.
No more they, wanton, drive before the blasts,
But strike the sails, and bring down all the masts;
The rolling waves their sinking shells o'erflow,
And dash them down again to sands below."
[75] The octopus.
Montgomery also thus exquisitely paraphrases the same idea in his
'Pelican Island':--
"Light as a flake of foam upon the wind,
Keel upwards, from the deep emerged a shell,
Shaped like the moon ere half her orb is filled.
Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose,
And moved at will along the yielding water.
The native pilot of this little bark
Put out a tier of oars on either side,
Spread to the wafting breeze a twofold sail,
And mounted up, and glided down, the billows
In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air,
And wander in the luxury of light."
Byron mentions the Nautilus in his 'Mutiny of the Bounty' as follows:--
"The tender Nautilus, who steers his prow,
The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe,
The ocean Mab--the fairy of the sea,
Seems far less fragile, and alas! more free.
He, when the lightning-winged tornadoes sweep
The surge, is safe: his port is in the deep;
And triumphs o'er the armadas of mankind
Which shake the world, yet crumble in the wind."
The very names by which this animal is known to the science which some
persons erroneously think must be so hard and dry are poetic. In
Aristotle's day it was called the _Nautilus_ or _Nauticus_, "the
mariner," and though two thousand two hundred years have passed since
the great master wrote, the name still clings to it. As the Pearly
Nautilus, a very different animal, also bears that name, Gualtieri
perceived the necessity of distinguishing the Paper Nautilus from it,
and was followed by Linnaeus, who therefore entitled the genus to which
the latter belongs, _Argonauta_, after the ship _Argo_, in which Jason
and his companions sailed to Colchis to carry off the "Golden Fleece"
suspended there in the temple of Mars, and guarded by brazen-hoofed
bulls, whose nostrils breathed out fire and death, and by a watchful
dragon that never slept. According to the Greek legend, the _Argo_ was
named after its builder Argus, the son of Danaus, and was the first ship
that ever was built. Oppian ('Halieutics,' book I.) expresses his
opinion that the Nautilus served as a model for the man who first
conceived the idea of constructing a ship, and embarking on the
waters:--
"Ye Powers! when man first felled the stately trees,
And passed to distant shores on wafting seas,
Whether some god inspired the wondrous thought,
Or chance found out, or careful study sought;
If humble guess may probably divine,
And trace th' improvement to the first design,
Some wight of prying search, who wond'ring stood
When softer gales had smoothed the dimpled flood,
Observed these careless swimmers floating move,
And how each blast the easy sailor drove;
Hence took the hint, hence formed th' imperfect draught,
And ship-like fish the future seaman taught.
Then mortals tried the shelving hull to slope,
To raise the mast, and twist the stronger rope,
To fix the yards, let fly the crowded sails,
Sweep through the curling waves, and court auspicious gales."
Pope, too, in his 'Essay on Man' (Ep. 3), adopted the idea in his
exhortation--
"Learn of the little Nautilus to sail,
Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale."
Poetry, like the wizard's spell, can make
"A nutshell seem a gilded barge,
A sheeling seem a palace large,"
but the equally enchanting wand of science is able by a touch to dispel
the illusion, and cause the object to appear in its true proportions. So
with the fiction of the "Paper Sailor."
I have elsewhere described the affinities of the Nautili and their place
in nature, therefore it will only be necessary for me here to allude to
these very briefly, to explain the great and essential difference that
exists between the two kinds of Nautilus which are popularly regarded as
being one and the same animal.
The _Pearly_ Nautilus (_Nautilus pompilius_) and the Argonaut, which
from having a fragile shell of somewhat similar external form is called
the _Paper_ Nautilus, both belong to that great primary group of animals
known as the _Mollusca_, and to the class of it called the
_Cephalopoda_, from their having their head in the middle of that which
is the foot in other mollusks. In the Cephalopoda the foot is split or
divided into eight segments in some families, and in others into ten
segments, which radiate from the central head, like so many rays. These
rays are not only used as feet, but, being highly flexible, are adapted
for employment also as prehensile arms, with which their owner captures
its prey, and they are rendered more perfect for this purpose by being
furnished with suckers which hold firmly to any surface to which they
are applied. The Cephalopods which have the foot divided into ten of
these segments or arms are called the _Decapoda_, those which have only
eight of them are called the _Octopoda_. All of these have _two_
plume-like gills--one on each side--and so are called _Dibranchiata_;
and in the eight-armed section of these is the argonaut or Paper
Nautilus. Of the Pearly Nautilus and the four-gilled order I shall have
more to say by-and-by: at present we will follow the history of the
argonaut.
[Illustration: FIG. 28--THE PAPER NAUTILUS (_Argonauta argo_) RETRACTED
WITHIN ITS SHELL.]
Notwithstanding all that has been written of it, it is only within the
last fifty years that this has been correctly understood. An eight-armed
cuttle was recognised and named _Ocythoe_, which, instead of having,
like the common octopus, all of its eight arms thong-like and tapering
to a point, had the two dorsal limbs flattened into a broad thin
membrane. Although this animal was sometimes seen dead without any
covering, it was generally found contained in a thin and slightly
elastic univalve shell of graceful form, and bearing some resemblance to
an elegantly shaped boat. It did not penetrate to the bottom of this
shell; it was not attached to it by any muscular ligament, nor was the
shell moulded on its body, nor apparently made to fit it. Hence it was
long regarded as doubtful, and even by naturalists so recent and eminent
as Dumeril and De Blainville, whether the octopod really secreted the
shell, or whether, like the hermit-crab, it borrowed for its protection
the shell of some other mollusk. Aristotle left the subject with the
faithful acknowledgment: "As to the origin and growth of this shell
nothing is yet exactly determined. It appears to be produced like other
shells; but even this is not evident, any more than it is whether the
animal can live without it." Pliny, as usual, instead of throwing light
on the matter, obscured it. He regarded the shell as the property of a
gasteropod like the snail, and the octopod as an amateur yachtsman who
occasionally went on board and took a trip in the frail craft, and
assisted its owner to navigate it for the fun of the thing. This is what
he says about it[76]: "Mutianus reports that he saw in the Propontis a
shell formed like a little ship, having the poop turned up and the prow
pointed. An animal called the _Nauplius_, resembling an octopus, was
enclosed in the shell with its owner, for its amusement in the following
manner. When the sea is calm the guest lowers his arms, and uses them as
oars and a helm, whilst the owner of the shell expands himself to catch
the wind; so that one has the pleasure of carrying and sailing, and the
other of steering. Thus, these two otherwise senseless animals take
their pleasure together; but the meeting them sailing in their shell is
a bad omen for mariners, and foretells some great calamity."
[76] Naturalis Historia, lib. ix. cap. 30.
Although the animal was never found in any other shell, and the shell
was never known to contain any other animal, and though, when the shell
and the animal were found together they were always of proportionate
size, this octopod, as I have said, was looked upon by some
conchologists as a pirate who had taken possession of a ship which did
not belong to him, until Madame Jeannette Power, a French lady then
residing in Messina, having succeeded in keeping alive for a time an
argonaut the shell of which had been broken in its capture, discovered
that the animal quickly repaired the fracture, and reproduced the
portions that had been broken off. Induced by this to make further
experiments, she kept a number of living argonauts in cages sunk in the
sea near the citadel of Messina, and in 1836 laid before the "Academy"
at Catania the following results of her observations of them:--
1st. That the argonaut constructs the shell which it inhabits.
2nd. That it quits the egg entirely naked, and forms the shell after its
birth.
3rd. That it can repair its shell, if necessary, by a fresh deposit of
material having the same chemical composition as its original shell.
4th. That this material is secreted by the palmate, or sail, arms, and
is laid on the outside of the shell, to the exterior of which these
membranous arms are closely applied.
Madame Power was mistaken on two points. Firstly, the construction of
the shell does not commence after the birth of the animal, but, as has
been shown by M. Duvernoy, its rudimentary form is distinctly visible by
the aid of the microscope in the embryo, whilst still in the egg; and
secondly, she continued to believe in the use of the membranous arms as
sails, and of the others as oars. This fallacy was exploded by Captain
Sander Rang, an officer of the French navy, and "port-captain" at
Algiers, who carefully followed up Madame Power's experiments, and
confirmed the more important of them. Thus were set at rest questions
which for centuries had divided the opinions of zoologists.
The "Paper Nautilus" is, in fact, a female octopod provided with a
portable nest, in which to carry about and protect her eggs, instead of
brooding over them in some cranny of a rock, or within the recesses of a
pile of shells, as does her cousin the octopus. From the membranes of
the two flattened and expanded arms she secretes and, if necessary,
repairs her shell, and by applying them closely to its outer surface on
each side, holds herself within it, for it is not fastened to her body
by any attaching muscles. When disturbed or in danger she can loosen her
hold, and, leaving her cradle, swim away independently of it. It has
been said that, having once left it, she has not the ability nor perhaps
the sagacity to re-enter her nest, and resume the guardianship of her
eggs.[77] From my own observations of the breeding habits of other
octopods I think this most improbable. The use and purpose of the shell
of the argonaut will be better understood if I briefly describe what I
have witnessed of the treatment of its eggs by its near relative, the
octopus.
[77] Appendix to Sir Edward Belcher's 'Voyage of the "Samarang,"'
by Mr. Arthur Adams, assistant surgeon to the expedition.
"The eggs of the octopus," as I have elsewhere said, "when first laid,
are small, oval, translucent granules, resembling little grains of rice,
not quite an eighth of an inch long. They grow along and around a common
stalk, to which every egg is separately attached, as grapes form part of
a bunch. Each of the elongated bunches is affixed by a glutinous
secretion to the surface of a rock or stone (never to seaweed, as has
been erroneously stated), and hangs pendent by its stalk in a long white
cluster, like a magnified catkin of the filbert, or, to use Aristotle's
simile, like the fruit of the white alder. The length and number of
these bunches varies according to the size and condition of the parent.
Those produced by a small octopus are seldom more than about three
inches long, and from twelve to twenty in number; but a full-grown
female will deposit from forty to fifty of such clusters, each about
five inches in length. I have counted the eggs of which these clusters
are composed, and find that there are about a thousand in each: so that
a large octopus produces in one laying, usually extended over three
days, a progeny of from 40,000 to 50,000. I have seen an octopus, when
undisturbed, pass one of her arms beneath the hanging bunches of her
eggs, and, dilating the membrane on each side of it into a boat-shaped
hollow, gather and receive them in it as in a trough or cradle which
exhibited in its general shape and outline a remarkable similarity to
the shell of the argonaut, with the eggs of which octopod its own are
almost identical in form and appearance. Then she would caress and
gently rub them, occasionally turning towards them the mouth of her
flexible exhalent and locomotor tube, like the nozzle of a fireman's
hose-pipe, so as to direct upon them a jet of the excurrent water. I
believe that the object of this syringing process is to free the eggs
from parasitic animalcules, and possibly to prevent the growth of
conferva, which, I have found, rapidly overspreads those removed from
her attention."[78]
[78] 'The Octopus,' 1873, p. 57.
It has been suggested that the syringing may be for the purpose of
keeping the water surrounding the eggs well aerated; but this is
evidently erroneous, for the water ejected from the tube has been
previously deprived of its oxygen, and consequently of its health-giving
properties, whilst passing over the gills of the parent. Week after
week, for fifty days, a brooding octopus will continue to attend to her
eggs with the most watchful and assiduous care, seldom leaving them for
an instant except to take food, which, without a brief abandonment of
her position, would be beyond her reach. Aristotle asserted that while
the female is incubating she takes no food. This is incorrect; but in
every case of the kind that has come under my observation the mother
octopod, whenever she has been obliged to leave her nest, has returned
to it as quickly as possible; and so I believe can, and does, the female
argonaut to her shell, and that, too, without any difficulty. In her
case the numerous clusters of eggs are all united at their origin to one
slender and tapering stalk which is fixed by a spot of glutinous matter
to the body-whorl of the spiral shell.
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--THE PAPER NAUTILUS (_Argonauta argo_)
CRAWLING.]
This "paper-sailor," then, whom the poets have regarded as endowed with
so much grace and beauty, and living in luxurious ease, is but a fine
lady octopus after all. Turn her out of her handsome residence, and,
instead of the fairy skimmer of the seas, you have before you an object
apparently as free from loveliness and romance as her sprawling,
uncanny-looking, relative. Instead of floating in her pleasure boat over
the surface of the sea, the argonaut ordinarily crawls along the bottom,
carrying her shell above her, keel uppermost; and the broad extremities
of the two arms are not hoisted as sails, nor allowed when at rest to
dangle over the side of the "boat;" but are used as a kind of hood by
which the animal retains the shell in its proper position, as a man
bearing a load on his shoulders holds it with his hands. When she comes
to the surface, or progresses by swimming instead of walking, she does
so in the same manner as the octopus: namely, by the forcible expulsion
of water from her funnel-like tube.
But if truth compels us to deprive her of the counterfeit halo conferred
on her by poets, we can award her, on behalf of science, a far nobler
crown; namely, that of the Queen of the whole great Invertebrate Animal
Kingdom. For, the _Cephalopoda_, of which the argonaut is a highly
organised member, are not only the highest in their own division, the
_Mollusca_, but they are as far superior to all other animals which have
no backbones, as man stands lord and king over all created beings that
possess them.
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--THE PAPER NAUTILUS (_Argonauta argo_)
SWIMMING.]
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--SHELL OF THE PAPER NAUTILUS (_Argonauta
argo_).]