opportunities of searching t 73 
and under all circumstances of weather, would make 
themselves acquainted with the fact. that, when the 
shell is enveloped with the fleshy mantle, and its 
fragility renders it necessary “e it Ee be so 
enveloped always when moving abort, it looks like 
amass of blubber. No one would suspect that the 
beautiful shell of the cypraea was to be found in the 
lump of shapeiess gelatine that lies about on the 
low keys. ‘The cover of the spirnla has a similar 
unsightly Ieok. We are as ill informed nearly 
-abont the pearly nautilus, as about this cephalapod 
of ours. Our information on the former is nearly 
all confined to the following fact in Bennetts 
“© Wanderings.” ‘A mate of a whaler who had 
been shipwreeked a among the Fidei group of islands 
in the Southern Pacific, and had resided among the 
group for nearly three years, told Mr Bennett, that 
he had seen the shell of the pearly na utils con- 
taining the living animal, floating in the water near 
one of the islands. He had only seen two hiving, 
although the empty shells were very numerous among 
the islands. The first time he saw. one, was when 
in a canoe with some cther shipwrecked Karopeans ; 
it was then fioating upon the surface of the water 
with the mouth of the shell uppermost. It was ens 
veloped in the mantle, which extended some dis- 
tance upwards, and over the wnole of the shell; and 
it had such an appearance as to cause one of the 
men in the canoe to say ;—‘ There isa large piece of 
blubber upon the water; on approaching if, the anj- 

