ANIMAL LIFE IN THE GULF STREAM. 657 



and varied as to defy all comparison or description. These little 

 animals, living in the water and moving from place to place, are 

 as perfect and sea-worthy ships in miniature as the best modern 

 vessels, and built upon as improved a pattern as our vessels which 

 have been so long evolving. They have for centuries plowed the 

 open seas in their vessels, never seeking port and never suffer- 

 ing disaster. "With their air-float above, in addition to buoyancy, 

 perfect stability is obtained. Their body below serves as ballast, 

 and their membranous wings are good sails, that can be furled 

 or hoisted at the animal's will. ~No masts to be carried away, no 

 anchor needed, but perfect safety always. How well adapted for 

 their surroundings — indeed, how well all Nature's creatures are 

 adapted for their mode of life ! How many ideas in modern archi- 

 tecture and engineering, but just discovered as the result of long 

 study and experiment, have been in use for centuries untold 

 among the lower animals which we are so wont to regard as un- 

 worthy of life ! The ant, the bee, the spider, and hundreds of 

 others are to-day using principles which man has yet to learn. 

 The properties of the arch and dome, if not first learned from ani- 

 mals, might have been, much to man's advantage, long before he 

 discovered them. 



On very rare occasions the nautilus is found, and at times we 

 also fall in with the Argonauta, or paper nautilus. They are both 

 related to cuttle-fishes, differing from them in having shelly cover- 

 ings and in some other more technical points. Each has a row of 

 arms, with suckers around the mouth, and they move in the same 

 manner as true cuttle-fishes do — by ejecting a quantity of water 

 through a tube with such force as to drive the animal backward. 

 The nautilus, as it grows, builds the shell larger to accommodate 

 the growing body, building on the edge and continuing the spiral, 

 and at the same time forming a partition across the rear. If a 

 nautilus-shell is cut longitudinally, it will be found to be made 

 up of a large anterior chamber, which the animal occupied just 

 before it died, and behind a large number of chambers separated 

 from each other by transverse partitions, and connected together 

 only by a small circular hole that exists in each partition. When 

 the nautilus is alive, a fleshy tube runs through all these cham- 

 bers, passing through the holes, and forms the only connection 

 between the animal and the rear chambers once inhabited by it. 

 It is thought that by means of this tube the rear compartments 

 can be filled with water or emptied at the animal's will, thus 

 allowing it either to rise to the surface or to sink to any required 

 depth. Argonauta is a pure white, ridged shell, thin and delicate, 

 the animal being very much like the nautilus ; but in this case 

 the female alone has the covering, while the male is entirely 

 without a shell. In many cases, among the lower forms of ani- 



