282 SEA FABLES EXPLAINED. 



Owen was just about to start for Paris with the intention 

 of presenting a copy of his book to his celebrated contem- 

 porary and friend, and of showing him his dissections of the 

 Nautilus which had been the subject of his research, when 

 he heard of Baron Cuvier's death. It must have been to 

 him a great sorrow and a grievous disappointment. 



The Pearly Nautilus, then, is a true cephalopod, in that 

 it has its foot divided and arranged in segments around 

 its head, but the form and number of these segments are 

 very different from those of any other of its class. Instead of 

 there being eight, as in the argonaut and octopus, or ten, as 

 in sepia and the calamaries, the Nautilus has about ninety 

 projecting in every direction from around the mouth. They 

 are short, round and tapering, of about the length and thick- 

 ness of the fingers of a child. Some of them are retractile 

 into sheaths, and they are attached to fleshy processes 

 (which might represent the child's hand), overlying each 

 other, and covering the mouth on each side. They have 

 none of the suckers with which the arms and tentacles of all 

 the t other cuttles are furnished, but their annulose structure, 

 like the rings of an earthworm's body, gives them some 

 little prehensile power. None of these numerous finger- 

 like segments of the foot are flattened out like the broad 

 membranous expansions of the argonaut, and, in fact, the 

 Nautilus is without any members which can possibly be 

 regarded as sails to hoist, or as oars with which to row. It 

 has a strong beak, like the rest of the cuttles, but, unlike 

 them, has four gills instead of two ; and it has no ink-sac, 

 for its shell is strong enough to afford it the protection 

 which its two-gilled relatives have to seek in concealment. 



The Pearly Nautilus usually creeps, like a snail, along 

 the bed of the sea. It lives at the bottom, and feeds 



