84 SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 



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."* 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. 



" 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 magni- 

 fied 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 



* Appendix to Sir Edward Belcher's 'Voyage of the " Samarang,"' 

 by Mr. Arthur Adanis, assistant surgeon to the expedition. 



