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]S^AIJTILIIS AXJ) AM:M0XITE. 



The Xautili arc called testaceous cephalopods, our readers 

 know, or ought to know, the meaning of both these terms. 

 Like the Cuttle-fish they are sometimes called Polypi^ because 

 they have many arms or tentacles, the word poly, with which 

 a great number of English words commence, being the Greek 

 for many. An ancient writer named Aristotle, after describing 

 the naked cephalopods, says, ''There are also two polypi in 

 shells; one is called by some, nautilus, and by others, nauticus. 

 It is like the polypus, but its shell resembles a hollow comb 

 or pecten, and is not attached. This polypus ordinarily feeds 

 near the sea-shore; sometimes it is thrown by the waves on 

 the dry land, and the shell falling from it, is caught, and 

 there dies. The other is in a shell like a snail, and this does 

 not go out of its shell, but remains in it like a snail, and 

 sometimes stretches forth its cirrhi.''^ The first of these ani- 

 mals, there can be no doubt, is the xirgouaut, or Paper 

 Xautilus, and the latter that which is called the True Xautilus, 

 of both of which species let us say a few words, which we 

 will introduce by quoting some beautiful lines from a poem 

 called ''the Pelican Island," by James Montgomery. 



"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 wafted breeze a two-fold sail, 

 And mounted up and glided down the billow, 

 In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air, 

 And wander in the luxury of light." 



The tiny mariner here alluded to, is the Paper Xautilus, 

 common in the Mediterranean and some tropical seas; its sci- 

 entific name is Argo7iauta argo. In the mythology, we read 

 that Argo was the name of a ship that carried a certain Gre- 

 cian named Jason, and a crew of argives in search of adventures; 

 some saj' that the term is derived from a Greek word signifying 

 swift: this party of mariners, said to be the first that ever 



