IN FEATHERS AND FUR. 
329 
THE PAPER NAUTILUS. 
Who would suspect, to look at this pretty shaped shell, that 
the creature who made it, and spent its life in it, was a member of 
the cuttle fish family, and own cousin to the horrid Octopus that 
I have already told you about ! 
I don't suppose there ever lived another creature, of whom so 
many different stories have been told — and believed — as the Nau- 
tilus. The ancients have romanced about it, and poets have 
written about it, till we hardly know what to believe. It was called 
the Argonaut, in memory of the ship Argo, about which there is an 
old fable which you must find out for yourselves in some Classical 
Dictionary, or Encyclopedia. 
It received the name of Paper Nautilus because of its shell, 
which is not much thicker than paper. It was said to sail the 
ocean by means of two sails, assisted by its arms used as oars, and 
rudder. It was regarded as a good omen to meet the pretty 
little navigator, and a sign of good weather. 
But modern scientific men have had their eyes on the Nautilus 
for some time, and though they have proved all these old stories to 
