9 
THE NEW YORK AQUARIUM JOURNAL. 
75 
FISH IN FACT AND FABLE. 
4. 
THE NAUTILUS. 
This is the ship of pearl white, poets feign, 
Sails the unshadowed main — 
The venturesome bark that flings 
On the sweet Summer wind its purple wings, 
In gulf enchanted, where the siren sings, 
Where coral reefs lie bare, 
And the cold sea maids rise to sun their streaming hair. 
Thus sings Dr. Holmes, in one of his sweet¬ 
est poems, of the nautilus, the mostfbeautiful of 
sea-wonders. It dwells chiefly in the Mediter¬ 
ranean, and when the sea is calm it may be seen 
floating along the surface, sometimes spreading 
its tiny sail, sometimes rowing with its oar-like 
arms, or again floating on its mouth like a ship 
with the keel upward. Alexander the Great 
was the first to notice these little mariners and, 
struck with their peculiarity, gave them 
the name of Argonauts, from the famous 
Grecian fleet. From that time onward 
poets have written and sung of their 
mysterious vessels. 
The Nautilus and the ammonite, 
Were launched in storm and strife, 
Each sent to float in her tiny boat, 
On the wild, wild sea of life. 
And each could swim on the ocean’s brim, 
And anon its sails could furl, 
And sink to sleep in the great sea deep, 
In a palace all of pearl. 
The shell of the pearly Nautilus has 
been an object of interest and admira¬ 
tion since its first discovery. One was 
dedicated to Isis and kept in the sacred 
F.gyptian temple ; another was pre¬ 
served by the Greeks as a most precious 
treasure. One was made into a drink¬ 
ing cup, curiously engraved with deli¬ 
cate devices by skillful artists, who thus 
brought out in cameo relief the pearly 
substances of the shell beneath. This 
exquisite specimen of workmanship is 
still preserved. The subject of the dec¬ 
oration is the triumph of Neptune and 
Amphitrite. This device was particu¬ 
larly appropriate as the Nautilus was 
specially dedicated to Venus, and is 
often spoken of as her fairy car. There 
is a charming little Greek poem, written 
on the occasion of the offering of a nautilus at 
the shrine of Aphorbite by Silonea, the daughter 
of a nobleman of Smyrna. The poet seems to 
have shared his devotion equally between the 
heavenly and earthly goddess. He begins thus : 
A sacred shell, Venus divine, 
Fair Silonea offers at thy shrine ; 
And thus thy Nautilus is doubly blest, 
Since given by her and still by thee possessed. 
Venus, however, does not exercise such pro¬ 
tecting power as she ought over her little fleet, 
for after every storm the shores of the Medi¬ 
terranean are strewn with the empty shells, 
which have floated pilotless and rudderless at 
the mercy of the gale, until dashed to pieces on 
the rocks, or, more fortunate, washed up on the 
sandy beach. 
Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl; 
Wrecked is the ship of pearl ! 
And every chambered cell, 
Where its dim dreamy life was wont to dwell, 
As the frail tenant shaped his growing cell. 
Before thee lies revealed, 
Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt revealed. 
The chambered nautilus inhabits a shell 
which is divided into forty partitions that com- 
mumbate with each other by minute doors or 
openings, scarcely larger than a goose quill. 
The body of the nautilus is divided into as many 
pars as there arc hambers in thee cell, and all the 
parts communicate with each other by a long 
cord running from head to tail, so that the body 
taken out of the shell would look like a long row 
of pearls on a string. It seems impossible with 
this strange formation that the nautilus should 
ever leave its shell, and no one has been able to 
explain just how it forces its body through the 
doors, which are not half its size ; but the fact is 
certain, and the theory is that it removes the sub¬ 
stance of one section up into the next, and thus 
moves out of its house one story at a time. 
The argonaut, called the paper nautilus, from 
its thin, white, delicate shell, has eight arms, 
two of which are spread out into broad mem¬ 
branes. These are the arms which in tradition 
were called its sails, while the others were sup¬ 
posed to act as oars. 
Pope speaks of the art ol navigation as learned 
from the nautilus : 
For thus to man the voice of Nature spake : 
“ Go, from the creatures thy instructions take; 
Learn of the little nautilus to sail, 
Spread the thin oar, and catch the flying gale.” 
Recent observation, however, have dissipated 
the fancies of poets, and the enchanting illusions 
of myth, for science has determined that the 
movement is caused not by motion of net or 
arms, but by pumping water in and out of the 
bronchial cavity, the arms meanwhile firmly 
grasping the shell. Sometimes the nautilus 
walks about on the sandy floor of the deep sea, 
carrying her shell on her back like the snail, and 
crawling about in comfortable security. 
For who can walk where the nautilus hides, 
When her silken sails are furled ; 
Where retreat in their fury the baffled tides, 
From the shores of this upper world ? 
When she rises to the surface, however, she 
is extremely timid, and if suddenly alarmed, her 
arms lose their hold of her boat and it floats 
away, leaving her to sink mournfully into the 
" sing ner praiswand it might almcJ 
for her untimely end, could she listen to her 
own requiem : 
Farewell, beauteous mollusk, the day’s fairest daughter 1 
Thy dirge faintly soundeth from out the deep sea ; 
From the halls of the Nereids far down in the water, 
And sad are my thoughts, O my lost one ! of thee. 
The music and stars, ’mid the rush of the wild waves, 
May gnide thy frail bark through the night glowing sea, 
But alas for the Nereid who watch in sea the,cases, 
The bark and its pilot they never shall see ! 
Rachel Farley. 
THE NAUTILUS. 
Year after year beheld the sunless toil, 
That spread its glittering coil ; 
Still as the spiral grew, 
It left the past year’s dwelling for the new, 
Stole with soft steps the silent ant way through ; 
Built up the idle door 
Stretched in his last found home and knew the old no more 
The moral of this little creature’s life is so 
gracefully and poetically drawn that we cannot 
leave the subject of the chambered nautilus with¬ 
out quoting the final verses : 
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, 
Child of the wandering sea ; 
Cast from her lap forlorn ! 
From thy dead lips a clearer note is born 
Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn ! 
While on mine ear it rings. 
Through the deep cares of thought I hear a voice that 
sings. 
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, 
As the swift seasons roll! 
Leave thy low-vaulted past! 
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, 
Shut thee from heaven with a doom more vast; 
Till thou at length art free, 
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea! 
SEARCH OF A WHALE, 
Lest any visitors to the Aquarium should have 
found themselves inconsolable at the untimely 
death of the whale, it may be a relief to tell them 
that efforts are being put forth to replace his 
majesty with another of the same royal race. An 
expedition has been equipped and dispatched to 
a distant region at the North, with instructions 
not to return without one or more captive 
cetacea. 
Although it is possible and not improbable 
that some months may elapse before the prize is 
secured, yet it is also possible that before this 
announcement reaches the reader, the whale may 
again be one of the numberless features of in¬ 
terest at the Aquarium. In the meantime, it is, 
perhaps, needless to remind our friends that 
though without a rival in size, yet the whale is 
by no means the most wonderful creature which 
swims the seas; already may there be seen at 
the tanks a score or more of marine wonders, 
equally rare, and for certain reasons still more 
curious and wonderful than the biggest of 
whales. 
