192 IRambles wttb Iftature Stufcente 



This cuttle-fish has numerous tentacles or feelers, 

 on which it sometimes crawls like a snail at 

 the bottom of the sea. It is a deep-sea dweller, 

 but at times it rises to the surface, and swims 

 through the water by drawing in air and then 

 violently ejecting it, thus progressing backwards by 

 a series of jerks. The shell is as hard and smooth 

 as porcelain, and is marked outside by a series of 

 dark brown wavy lines. 



Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his beautiful poem 

 The Chambered Nautilus, draws a delightful lesson 

 from the formation of this shell. 



'Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 



As the swift seasons roll, 



Leave thy low-vaulted past ! 

 Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 

 Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, 



Till thou at length art free, 

 Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea.' 



Another species, known as the paper nautilus, has 

 a pure white and exquisitely fragile exterior, in 

 form resembling the common nautilus, but without 

 any chambers inside. Indeed, instead of being a 

 solid and polished substance, its shell is of an 

 extremely delicate and thin material, furrowed into 

 long wavy wrinkles. 



For ages this shell has been represented, as in 

 the accompanying drawing, sailing along on the 

 surface of the sea like a fairy bark, with two tiny 

 sails uplifted to catch the wind. It was said to 

 have given to man the idea of navigating the ocean ; 

 Aristotle thus described it. Pope writes, ' Learn of 

 the nautilus to sail.' Montgomery and other poets 



