Chap. 50.] 
SEA-AITIMALS. 
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 
curvino; inwards, and a prow with the beak^^ attached. In 
this shell-fish there lies concealed also an animal known as the 
naupllus, 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 shelLfish 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 ARE ENCLOSED WITH A CEITST ; 
THE CRAY-FISH. 
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 
*8 Probably borrowed from the Greeks, who called it aKUTog. It is sup- 
posed to have been a small boat, similar to the Roman " scapha ;** like our 
skiff" probably. 
59 The rostrum" of the ancient ships of war. 
60 Palmulis." This word also means the blade or broad part of an oar ; 
in which sense it may, perhaps, he 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 forcipes, and has a thorax covered with spines ; the Palinurus quad- 
ricornis of the naturalists. This is clearly the Kapapog 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 oflfended him, to 
be rubbed with a locusta. 
62 Aristotle, and Theophrastus, in his " Treatise on Animals which 
conceal themselves," state to a similar effect. 
