82 SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 



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 * : 

 "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 Naiipliiis, re- 

 sembling 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." 



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 

 * Naturalis Historia, lib. ix. cap. 30. 



