110 



SKETCHES OF CREATION. 



CHAPTER XI. 



Fig. 42. The Paper Nautilus {Argo 

 nauta Argo). 



THE FAIRY SAILOR AND HIS COUSINS. 



WHO has not heard of the argonaut, or paper nautilus? 

 One of the most vivid recollections of our early read- 

 ing presents us with a little boatman, in his " shelly bark," 



wafted over the placid surface 

 of a summer sea. With tiny 

 sail upraised, the favoring 

 breeze bears him securely on- 

 ward ; but let the winds escape 

 from their iEolian caves, and 

 the billows wake from their 

 liquid slumbers, and down 

 glides our tiny boatman with 

 his shelly bark, and finds a safe retreat among the marble 

 corridors of the millepores and the madrepores. Montgom- 

 ery, in his " Pelican Island," has thus embalmed the fable : 



"Light as a flake of foam upon the wind, 

 Keel -upward, from the deep emerged a shell, 

 Shaped like the moon ere half her orb is filled. 

 Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose, 

 And moved at will along the yielding wave. 

 The native pilot of this little bark 

 Put out a tier of oars on either side, 

 Spread to the wafting breeze a twofold sail, 

 And mounted up and glided down the billow 

 In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air, 

 And wonder in the luxury of light. " 



It seems a pity to spoil so pretty a fable, and one, too, 

 that has lived since the days of Aristotle. But the fable 

 of the argonaut has been spoiled by the industry of a lady. 



