/ 
be adduced the very remarkable and curious genus 
Argonauta or Paper-Nautilus, which is inhabited by an 
animal of an appearance fo widely removed from thofe 
of mod of the Univalves, as almoft to make doubtful 
the reality of its being the genuine and proper inhabi¬ 
tant of the fhell in which it refides. .Linnaeus accord¬ 
ingly has well obferved, that unlefs the evidence of fo 
many eye-witneffes had enforced belief, it might have 
been reafonably imagined that an animal fo unlike the 
reft of the tribe, was only a ufurper of the fhell ; in 
the fame manner as the Cancer Diogenes and a few 
others, which take pofleffion of fuch vacant {hells as 
happen to fuit their convenience. The inhabitant of 
the Argonauta, if feen detached from its (hell, might 
pafs for a real Sepia, and bears fo great a refemblance 
to the Sepia odlopodia or eight-armed Cuttle-fifb, that 
the principal difference confifts in its being furniihedaq 
the extremities of two of it arms with a pair of mem¬ 
branes of an oval form, which, during its occaiional 
navigations on the furface of a calm fea, it raifes up¬ 
right and expands to the gale; while by the affiftance 
of the fix remaining arms it rows itfelf along. It feems 
impoffible that fo curious a fpedacle could have elcaped 
the particular obfervation of mankind. Accordingly 
we find it deferibed by various authors : by none how¬ 
ever more elegantly than by Pliny, whole fhort and 
beautiful defeription, has generally been quoted by mo¬ 
dem writers. 
“ But amongft the principal miracles of nature is the 
animal called Nautilos or Pompilos. It afeends to the 
furface of the fea in a fupinc pofturc, and gradually 
railing’ itfelf up, forces out by means of its tube all the 
water 
