THE PEARLY NAUTILUS. 47 



calm, they are seen in troops, floating on the water, being 

 driven upwards by the agitation of the waves. Their 

 sailing, however, is not long ; for having taken in their ten- 

 tacles, they upset their boats, and so return to the bottom." 

 Tliis account, published at Amsterdam more than a hundred 

 years since, is mainly correct, although perhaps a little exag- 

 gerated ; for Nautili are never seen in fleets, nor yet are they 

 so familiar as to walk into the nets of fishermen. 



Another century elapsed; and, although the waves con- 

 tinually brought up and deposited shells of the Nautilus 

 upon the shore, no one seemed to care for them, till 

 a naturaHst of the name of Bennett succeeded in cap- 

 turing a female individual when calmly floating in the bay 

 of Marakini, at the island of Erromanga, New Hebrides. 

 The living specimen was considerably shattered in attempting 

 to secure it, and the shell, being much broken, was injudi- 

 ciously removed. A minute portion, however, adhered to one 

 of the lateral expansions of the belt, and Professor Owen, 

 to whom the specimen was transmitted, was enabled to con- 

 firm the history of tliis remarkable animal, as given by 

 Aristotle more than two thousand years before. 



The soft parts of the animal became in consequence the 

 subject of an elaborate memoir, and are ascertained to form 



