CEPHALOPODA 
461 
^vater with the arms on each side. On the approach of the least 
danger it fills its shell with water, and sinks into the sea.” 
Pliny gives it the name of Pompylius, and, after the example of 
Aristotle, explains how it navigates, by elevating its two first arms, a 
membrane of extreme tenuity stretching between them, while it rows 
With the others, using its median arm as a rudder. The Greek 
Poet, Oppian, who lived in the second century of our era, and to whom 
We are indebted for Poems on Pishing ( UalievUca ) and the Chase 
( Oynegetica ), says of it : “ Plidiug itself in a concave shell, the Pom- 
pylius can walk on land, hut can also rise to the surface of the water, 
’he back of its shell upwards, for fear that it should he filled. The 
moment it is seen, it turns the shell, and navigates it like a skil- 
Pd seaman: in order to do this, it throws out two of its feet like 
mitennse, between which is a thin membrane, "which is extended by 
the wind like a sail, while two others, which touch the water, guide, 
a s with a rudder, the house, the ship, and the animal. If danger 
a pproaches, it folds up its antennae, its sail, and its rudder, and dives, 
its weight being increased by the "water which it causes to enter the 
diell. As we see a man who is victor in the public games, his head 
circled by a crown, while vast crowds press around, so the Pompylius 
have always a crowd of ships following in then track, whose crews no 
longer dread to quit the land. 0 fish justly dear to navigators ! thy 
Presence announces winds soft and friendly : tlion bringest the calm, 
a ml thou art the sign of it.” 
Oppian carried Lis admiration a long way. That the Argonaut is an 
Climated skiff is agreed on all hands; but, in making it almost a 
bird — in according to it at once the faculty of gracefully navigating 
Ihe sea and floating in the atmosphere as an inhabitant of the regions 
of air — he was passing the limits permissible to poetic license. 
But the properties of the Nautilus has not alone struck the ima- 
8 nation of the Greeks and Romans ; it also attracted the attention 
°1 the Chinese, who call it the boat-polyp. Rumphius informs ns, 
lhat in India the shell fetches a great price (Fig. 319). Women 
consider it a great, a magnificent ornament. In their solemn fetes, 
dancers carry one of these shells in the right hand, holding it proudly 
a ^ove their heads. Nor did it require the dithyrambic praises with 
^’hich the ancients have surrounded it to recommend it to the adini- 
mtion of modern naturalists. Without exaggerating the graceful 
