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 yet _os 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, the
_Gasteropoda_, _Pteropoda_, and _Cephalopoda_.
The title of the _Gasteropoda_ is derived from two Greek words signifying
_belly_ and _foot_; the _raison d’être_ of 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 the _Pteropoda_ (from Greek words signifying _wing_ and _foot_)
locomotion is effected by membranous fins or wings.
Lastly, the _Cephalopoda_ are so called because they have prominently, as
a class, 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.
[Illustration: 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 name _Patella_ (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 witness _Patella 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.
[Illustration: TURBO.]
[Illustration: TROCHUS.]
Well‐known shells are also those of many species of _Trochus_; the spiral
shell has literally a _spiral animal_ inside it. So also some of the fifty
species of _Turbo_, which are often marbled in beautiful colours outwardly
and superbly nacred within. So again the winding pyramidal shells of the
_Turritella_, 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.
[Illustration: 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, the _Voluta_, 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
shell, which is often ornamented with gay colours and varied marks and
flutings. So also the _Conus_ genus, 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 with _snouts_, while their
mouths are furnished with horny teeth. Every good collection, too, is sure
to contain examples of the genus _Cassis_, principally from the Indian
Ocean.
[Illustration: VOLUTA.]
[Illustration: 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
genus _Purpura_ is 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 the _Purpura 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.
[Illustration: PURPURA LAPILLUS.]
The genus _Buccinum_ resembles that of the _Purpura_ in many respects. The
common 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.
[Illustration: MUREX.]
[Illustration: HARPA.]
[Illustration: CLEODORA.]
The genus _Harpa_ includes some beautifully marked and coloured shells, of
which _H. ventricosa_ is 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
genus _Triton_, of which about one hundred species are known, is ranged
with the genus _Murex_, on account of points of similarity. The Marine
Trumpet (_Triton variegatum_) which sometimes attains a length of sixteen
inches, is a fine example. The genus _Strombus_ includes 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 genus _Pteroceras_. They are of
fresh and brilliantly shaded colours.
[Illustration: STROMBUS.]
[Illustration: TRITON.]
And now to the _Pteropoda_, 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 of _Clio
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 the _Dibranchiata_, having two gills.
The first order has at this epoch but one genus, that of _Nautilus_. 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 is _not_ to 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.
[Illustration: THE COMMON NAUTILUS (_Nautilus pompilius_.)]
The order _Dibranchiata_ contains 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 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, a _pieuvre_ (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 insignificant. 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. Underneath 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 designates _Cephalopoda_, 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 called _pieuvres_.
“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 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 the _internal_ surface of the eight tentacular arms, and _each_ arm
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,(39) engaged 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‐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.
[Illustration: 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 corvette _Alecton_ fell 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 the _Dibranchiata_ contains 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.