THE OCTOPUS AND ITS RELATIVES. 5 



argonaut ordinarily crawls along the bottom, carrying its shell 

 above it, 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 it 



Fig. I. The Paper Nautilus (^Arg-onnuta argo). 

 The membrane is shewn partially retracted and the shell exposed. 



comes to the surface, or progresses by swimming instead of 

 walking, it does so in the same manner as the octopus ; namely, 

 by the forcible expulsion of water from its funnel-Hke tube/'' 



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 what Mr. Mantalini would call a " dem'd 

 damp, moist, unpleasant body," like that of her weird and 

 sprawling relative. The Paper Nautilus has been regarded as the 

 analogue of the snail, which, like it, secretes an external shell for 

 the protection of its soft body ; and the octopus as that of the 

 garden slug, which, having organs like those of the snail, as the 

 octopus has organs like those of the shell-bearing argonaut, has 

 no shelj. The Cuttles and Squids may be compared to some of 

 the sea-slugs, as Aplysia and Bidlcea, and to some land-slugs, as 

 Pa7'macella and Umax, which have an internal shell.f 



* See page 27. t H. Woodward; op. cit. 



