20 



the chief living remnant of a vast tribe of mollusks which must have existed 

 at a very early period of the world's history ; and whose shells exhibit a struc- 

 ture peculiarly indicative of their being inhabitants of very deep water. The 

 architype of this fossil race is itself an animal of comparatively ancient date, 

 for it is mentioned with brief but marvellous accuracy in the oldest record 

 extant on the subject of Natural History. The first scientific Expedition of 

 which wc have any account, is one in which the philosopher Aristotle was 

 sent by Alexander the Great, more than three hundred years before Christ, 

 for the purpose of collecting subjects for a History of Animals. In this 

 enterprise he appears to have met with both the Paper and the Pearly 

 Nautili; for in Scaliger's translation of the 'Historia Animahum', he says, 

 after describing the different forms of naked Cephalopods which no doubt 

 abounded in the Asiatic seas, " there are also two other kinds of Polypes 

 which are in shells, the one (meaning the Paper Nautilus) has a shell 

 which is not naturally adherent to it, it feeds very frequently near the land, 

 and being cast by the waves on the sand, the shell slips, and it dies ; but the 

 other (the Pearly Nautilus) is in a shell in which it exists after the manner 

 of a Snail, and outwardly extends its arms."* Nothing was added to this 

 account during the dark ages that succeeded Aristotle, nor till some time 

 after the revival of letters. No further information respecting the Nautilus 

 was obtained until the discovery of a living specimen about the commence- 

 ment of the eighteenth century, by a Dutch merchant and naturalist, re- 

 sident at Amboyna, of the name of Rumphius. His drawing of the soft 

 parts separated from the shellf was greatly valued ; for more than a century 

 elapsed before another specimen was found, although the shells were cast 

 ashore in comparative abundance. This specimen, which was transmitted to 

 Professor Owen of the Royal College of Surgeons, formed the subject of an 

 elaborate Memoir J, and may be said to have been the first to confirm the 

 history of this remarkable animal given more than 2000 years before by 

 Aristotle. 



The great Cuvier, who achieved so much for the natural history of the 

 Animal Kingdom, looked with anxious solicitude, no doubt, for the soft and 

 living portion of the Nautilus, but the dessection was reserved, for a no less 

 skilful operator of the present day. A female Nautilus was captured in 

 1828 by Mr. George Bennett in Marekini Bay, at the Island of Erromanga, 

 New Hebrides ; it was seen floating alive on the surface of the water, and 

 was just about to sink when a sailor caught hold of it with a boat-hook. 

 The right eye was almost shattered in the struggle to secure it, and the shell 

 being much broken it was injudiciously removed. Two years unfortunately 



* Aristot. dc Animal, Scaliger, 1619. 



t Thesaurus imaginum, &c, PL xvii. f. B.; The Hague, 1739. Reproduced by Martini, 

 Conch. Cab. vol. 1. p. 222. vigil, ; Nurnbcrg, 1769. 



X Owen, Memoir on the Pearly Nautilus, 1832. 



