154 INTRODUCTION TO CONCHOLOGY. 



to the foot is attached a broad dilated fin^ and floaty composed 

 of small bladders, for the evident purpose of enabling the 

 animal to move readily in his watery location. And beau- 

 tiful is the effect produced by tiny fleets of lanthincB, \Ylien 

 calmly riding on the billows of the ocean. Mr. Arthur Adams 

 relates that, in his passage on board the Samarang, from the 

 Cape of Good Hope to St. Helena, several days of calm were 

 experienced, during which the South Atlantic, appearing 

 like a sheet of glass, was covered with innumerable lantliince, 

 nysalm, and Velellce, with companies of flying- fish, and 

 solitary skip-jacks, which suddenly emerged from its depths, 

 and disturbed the stillness by their flights and splashings. 

 He observed that, during the act of swimming, the broad 

 fin-like appendage of the lantJiina was fully extended, 

 while the vesicular float preceded the shell, and kept it in a 

 reversed position on the surface of the water. The females 

 had evidently a power of detaching certain portions of the 

 float, with their egg- containing sacks ; for, among the vast 

 numbers obtained in the trawls, many specimens occurred 

 with hardly a remnant left, wlnle several isolated floats were 

 taken up. The high seas, therefore, are evidently the home 

 of these beautiful mollusks ; and Mr. Adams further relates 

 that he has seen a fleet of manv hundreds wrecked on the 



