THE NAUTILUS. 169 



the following description of the nautilus by one of our 

 poets : — 



Light as a flake of foam upon the -wind, 

 Keel upwards, from the deep emerged a shell, 

 Shaped like the moon ere half her horn 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 wafting 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 poet has, in this instance, adorned by his genius 

 the common statements of naturalists. It should, how- 

 ever, be known, that since the days of Aristotle, the his- 

 tory of the argonaut, or paper nautilus, has been en- 

 veloped in a tissue of misconceptions and difficulties ; 

 and it is only of late that we have obtained an accurate 

 knowledge of this singular animal. Long as the argo- 

 naut has been noticed, and abundant as it is in the Me- 

 diterranean, it is chiefly owing to the well-conducted 

 experiments and unremitted observations of a French 

 lady residing in Sicily, (Madame Jeannette Power,) 

 who has transmitted the results of her researches, with 

 collections of specimens in illustration of them, to the 

 different learned societies of Italy, France, and England, 

 that we now understand its true nature. 



