ORDER CEPHALOPODA. 25 



Although this is the only instance of the animal itself 

 having been brought to this country, there is but little 

 doubt of its having been frequently taken, but as the 

 shell was the object of the captors, and not its inhabitant 

 the latter has been thrown away as useless. An office 

 in his Majesty's Navy found a Nautilus in a hole in a 

 reef of rocks, near an island on the Eastern coast of 

 Africa ; the mantle of the fish, like a thin membrane, 

 covered the shell, which was drawn in as soon as it was 

 touched, and the elegant shell was then displayed. " I 

 and others," says the same informant, " when it was first 

 seen did not notice it, regarding the animal, as the mem- 

 brane enveloped the shell, merely as a piece of blubber ; 

 but having touched it by accident, the membranous 

 covering was drawn in, and we soon secured our beau- 

 tiful prize." 



Rumphius, a German naturalist, appears to have 

 been acquainted with its habits; he says, " When he 

 thus floats upon the water, he puts out his head, and all 

 his barbs, and spreads them on the water, with the poop 

 of the shell above water : but at the bottom he creeps in 

 a reverse position, with his boat above him, and with his 

 head and barbs upon the ground, making a tolerablv 

 quick progress. He keeps himself chiefly on the 

 ground, creeping sometimes also into the nets of the 

 fishermen : but after a storm, as the weather becomes 

 calm, they are seen in troops floating on the water 

 being driven up by the agitation of the waves. This 

 sailing, however, is not of long continuance, for havin<>' 

 taken in all their tentacles, they upset their boat, and so 

 return to the bottom." 



