494 ^^-^ OCEAN WORLD. 



great renown among the ancient Greeks and Romans. It was the 

 subject of graceful legends ; it had inspired great poets ; it occupied 

 the attention of Aristotle, who called it the Nautilus and Nauiicos, 

 and of Pliny, who called it Pompylius. Few animals, indeed, have 

 been so celebrated, so anciently known. The Greek and Roman poets 

 saw in it an elegant model of the ship which the skill and audacity 

 of the man constructed who first braved the fury of the waves ; in the 

 words of the poet, "armour of triple oak and triple brass covered the 

 heart of him who first confided himself in a frail bark to the relentless 

 waves :" 



" Illi robur et ses triplex 



Circa pectus erat, qui fragilem truci 

 Commisit pelago ratem 



Primus " 



Horace, Car. I., iii. g. 



To meet the Pompylius was, according to the superstitious Roman, 

 a favouroible presage. This little oceanic wanderer, in spite of the 

 capricious waves, was a tutelar divinity, who guarded the navigator 

 in his course, and assured him of a happy passage. Listen to the 

 immortal author of the first natural history of animals, the philo- 

 sophical Aristotle. " The Nautilus Polyp," says the learned historian, 

 " is of the nature of animals which pass for extraordinary, for it can 

 float on the sea ; it raises itself from the bottom of the water, the shell 

 being reversed and empty, but when it reaches the surface it readjusts 

 it. It has between the arms a species of tissue similar to that which 

 unites the toes of web-footed birds. When there is a little wind, it 

 employs this tissue as a sort of rudder, letting it fall into the water 

 with the arms on each side. On the approach of the least danger it 

 fills its shell with water, and sinks into the sea." 



Pliny gives it the name of Pompylius, and, after the example of 

 ■Aristotle, explains how it navigates, by elevating its two first arms, a 

 membrane of extreme tenuity stretching between them, while it rows 

 with the others, using its median arm as a rudder. The Greek poet, 

 Oppian, who lived in the second century of our era, and to whom 

 we are indebted for poems on fishing {Hdieutica) and the chase 

 ( Cynegetica), says of it : — " Hiding itself in a concave shell, the Pom- 

 pylius can walk on land, but can also rise to the surface of the water, 

 the back of its shell upwards, for fear that it should be filled. The 

 moment it is seen, it turns the shell, and navigates it like a skifull 

 seamen : in order to do this, it throws out two of its feet like antennas, 

 between which is a thin membrane, which is extended by the wind 

 like a sail, while two others, which touch the water, guide, as with a 



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