494 THE 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 Meutilus and Mauticos, 
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 :” 
“*Tili robur et aes triplex 
Circa pectus erat, qui fragilem truci 
Commisit pelago ratem 
Primus. . . . .” 
Horace, Car. I, iii. 9. 
To meet the Pompylius was, according to the superstitious Roman, 
a favourable 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 (Aé/ieutica) 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 antenna, 
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 
