Chap. 50.] SEA-AHIMALS. 423 



a shell-fish, he says, with a keel, just like that of the vessel 

 which we know by the name of acatium,™ with the poop 

 curving inwards, and a prow with the beak°' attached. In 

 this shell-fish there lies concealed also an animal known as the 

 nauplius, which bears a strong resemblance to the ssepia, and 

 only adopts the shell-fish as the companion of its pastimes. 

 There are two modes, he says, which it adopts in sailing ; 

 when the sea is calm, the voyager hangs down its arms,"" and 

 strikes the water with a pair of oars as it were ; but if, on the 

 other hand, the wind invites, it extends them, employing 

 them by way of a helm, and turning the mouth of the shell to 

 the wind. The pleasure experienced by the shell- fish is that 

 of carrying the other, while the amusement of the nauplius 

 consists in steering ; and thus, at the same moment, is an in- 

 stinctive joy felt by these two creatures, devoid as they are of 

 all sense, unless, indeed, a natural antipathy to man — ^for it is 

 a well-known fact, that to see them thus sailing along, is a bad 

 omen, and that it is portentous of misfortune to those who 

 witness it. 



CHAP. 50. SEA- ANIMALS, WHICH AKE ENCLOSED WITH A CBTTST ; 



THE CEAT-EISH. 



The cray-fish," which belongs to that class of animals which 

 is destitute of blood, is protected by a brittle crust. This 

 creature keeps itself concealed for five months, and the same is 

 the case with crabs, which disappear for the same period. At 

 the beginning of spring, however, they both** of them, after the 



"9 Probably borrowed from the Greeks, who called it axaros. It is supr 

 posed to have been a small boat, similar to the Boman " scapha ;" like our 

 "skiff" probably. 



™ The " rostrum" of the ancient ships of war. 



™ " Palmulis." This word also means the. blade or broad part of an oar ; 

 in which sense it may, perhaps, be here taken. 



61 " Locusta ;" literally, the " locust" of the sea. By this name is meant, 

 Cuvier says, the " langouste" of the French (our cray-fish), which has no 

 large foroipes, and has a thorax covered with spines ; the Palinurus quad- 

 ricomis of the naturalists. This is clearly the Kapa^og of Aristotle, Hist. 

 Anim. B. viii. c. 23 ; for we generally find it thus translated by Pliny, 

 when he borrows anything from that philosopher. We know that the body 

 of this animal was spiny, from the fact that Tiberius, as we learn from 

 Suetonius, cruelly caused the face of a fisherman who had offended him, to 

 be rubbed with a locusta. 



6' Aristotle, and Theophrastus, in his " Treatise on Animals which 

 conceal themselves," state to a similar effect. 



