Part 7
When Mr. Sepia walks abroad, he sticks his little round body upright, so that his eyes, and mouth, which is armed with a parrot-like beak, are brought close to the surface over which he passes, while his long twining legs go sprawling about in all directions; on the insides of these legs are a great number of small circular suckers, by means of which the animal can fix itself to any object so tightly that it is almost impossible to detach it without tearing off part of the limb. Woe be to the poor unfortunate fish that chances to come in its way; the snaky arms are thrown around it, and made fast, and away goes the cephalopod for a ride, eating on the road to lose no time, on the finny steed that carries it. In some species each of the suckers has a hook in the centre, which of course renders the hold yet firmer, and no doubt adds to the disagreeable sensation which their tight compression must cause; it is likely that these hooks are intended to retain the hold of soft and slippery prey, which might otherwise be too agile for the “ugly customer,” that would affectionately embrace it. But Mr. Sepia, though well armed in front, is rather open to attacks in the rear of his soft naked body; to provide for such an emergency, he is furnished with a little bag of inky fluid, which he squirts out in the face of his pursuer, and escapes under cover of the cloud; this is the substance used by painters, and called sepia, whence the generic name of the mollusks which produce it.
In the British seas none of these cephalopods attain so large a size as to be formidable to man, as they do in warmer climates. It was asserted by Dens, an old navigator, that in the African seas, while three of his men were employed during a calm in scraping the sides of the vessel, they were attacked by a monstrous Cuttle-fish, which seized them in its arms, and drew two of them under water, the third man was with difficulty rescued by cutting off one of the creature’s limbs, which was as thick at the base as the fore-yard of the ship, and had suckers as large as ladles; the rescued sailor was so horrified by the monster, that he died delirious a few hours after. An account is also given of another crew who were similarly attacked off the coast of Angola; the creature threw its arms across the vessel, and had nearly succeeded in dragging it down, and was only prevented doing so by the severing of its limbs with swords and hatchets. A diligent observer of nature has asserted that in the Indian seas Cuttle-fish are often seen two fathoms broad across the centre, with arms nine fathoms long. Only think, what a monster! with a body twelve feet across, and eight or ten legs like water-snakes, some six and thirty feet long. Well may it be said, that the Indians when they go out in boats are in dread of such, and never sail without an axe for their protection.
There is a story told by a gentleman named Beale, who, while searching for shells upon the rocks of the Bonin Islands, encountered a species of Cuttle-fish called by the whalers “the Rock-squid,” and rashly endeavoured to secure it. This cephalopod, whose body was not bigger than a large clenched hand, had tentacles at least four feet across, and having its retreat to the sea cut off by Mr. Beale, twined its limbs around that gentleman’s arm, which was bared to the shoulder for the purpose of thrusting into holes of the rocks after shells, and endeavoured to get its horny beak in a position for biting. The narrator describes the sickening sensation of horror which chilled his very blood, as he felt the creature’s cold slimy grasp, and saw its large staring eyes fixed on him, and the beak opening and closing. He called loudly for help, and was soon joined by his companion, who relieved him by destroying the Cuttle-fish with a knife, and detaching the limbs piece by piece.
There are several species of these cephalopods; the most generally distributed appears to be the _Octopus vulgaris_, or Common Cuttle-fish, which is sometimes found on our own shores, where also may be obtained the Common Sepiola, _S. vulgaris_, usually about three inches long, and the Officinal Cuttle-fish, _S. Officinalis_, which is about a foot in length; we give below small figures of each of these three species, to show the difference in the shape: the two last, it will be observed, have, in addition to the eight tentacles, which give the generic name _Octopus_, signifying eight, two long side arms, the use of which does not appear to be very clearly determined.
[Illustration: O. VULGARIS. S. VULGARIS. S. OFFICINALIS.]
NAUTILUS AND AMMONITE.
The Nautili are called testaceous cephalopods, our readers know, or ought to know, the meaning of both these terms. Like the Cuttle-fish they are sometimes called _Polypi_, because they have many arms or tentacles, the word _poly_, with which a great number of English words commence, being the Greek for many. An ancient writer named Aristotle, after describing the naked cephalopods, says, “There are also two polypi in shells; one is called by some, _nautilus_, and by others, _nauticus_. It is like the polypus, but its shell resembles a hollow comb or pecten, and is not attached. This polypus ordinarily feeds near the sea-shore; sometimes it is thrown by the waves on the dry land, and the shell falling from it, is caught, and there dies. The other is in a shell like a snail, and this does not go out of its shell, but remains in it like a snail, and sometimes stretches forth its _cirrhi_.” The first of these animals, there can be no doubt, is the Argonaut, or Paper Nautilus, and the latter that which is called the True Nautilus, of both of which species let us say a few words, which we will introduce by quoting some beautiful lines from a poem called “the Pelican Island,” by James Montgomery.
“Light as a flake of foam upon the wind, Keel upwards from the deep, emerged a shell, Shaped like the moon ere half her orb is filled: Fraught with young life it righted as it rose, And moved at will along the yielding water. The native pilot of this little bark Put out a tier of oars on either side; Spread to the wafted breeze a two-fold sail, And mounted up and glided down the billow, In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air, And wander in the luxury of light.”
The tiny mariner here alluded to, is the Paper Nautilus, common in the Mediterranean and some tropical seas; its scientific name is _Argonauta argo_. In the mythology, we read that _Argo_ was the name of a ship that carried a certain Grecian named Jason, and a crew of _argives_ in search of adventures; some say that the term is derived from a Greek word signifying swift: this party of mariners, said to be the first that ever sailed upon the sea, was called _Argonauts_, or, as it might be freely translated, seamen of the ship Argo. _Nauticus_, in Latin, signifies anything relating to ships or navigation, and here you have the whole origin of the name of this little Argonaut, about which we must sing you a song written by Mary Howitt, before we proceed further:—
“Who was the first sailor; tell me who can; Old father Neptune?—no, you’re wrong, There was another ere Neptune began; Who was he? tell me. Tightly and strong, Over the waters he went—he went, Over the waters he went!
Who was the first sailor? tell me who can; Old father Noah!—no, you’re wrong, There was another ere Noah began, Who was he? tell me. Tightly and strong, Over the waters he went—he went, Over the waters he went.
Who was the first sailor? tell me who can; Old father Jason?—no, you’re wrong, There was another ere Jason began, Don’t be a blockhead, boy! Tightly and strong, Over the waters he went—he went, Over the waters he went.
Ha! ’tis nought but the poor little Nautilus— Sailing away in his pearly shell; He has no need of a compass like us, Foul or fair weather he manages well! Over the water he goes—he goes, Over the water he goes.”
Many more poems of the like nature we might quote, for this little shelled cephalopod has been a favourite with the poets time out of mind, and in some instances they and the less imaginative naturalists have disagreed in their accounts of its form and operations, for instance, Pope says—
“Learn of the little Nautilus to sail, Spread the thin oar and catch the driving gale.”
“Catch a fiddle-stick,” say some naturalists, the little Nautilus does nothing of the sort; and if you go to him to learn navigation, you will never be much of a sailor; he may teach you how to sink to the bottom and rise again, and that kind of knowledge might be worth something to you if you could breathe under water; and he might teach you how to swim, but not how to sail, for in spite of all poetic theories, he does the former and not the latter. Most usually he walks about at the bottom of the sea on his long arms, something like the Cuttle-fish, feeding on the marine vegetation; the shell is then uppermost; if we could look inside of it we should see numerous little chambers or cells, the larger and outermost of which only are inhabited by the mollusk, the others being filled with air render the whole light and buoyant. Through the centre of these chambers, down to the smallest of them, runs a membranous tube which can be exhausted or filled with fluid at the pleasure of the animal, and the difference thus effected in the weight of the shell enables it to sink or swim; in the latter case, up it goes to the surface, and “keel upwards from the deep,” emerges, as the poet has said, but once there it soon reverses its position. The shell becomes like a boat it is true, but its inhabitant neither points a sail nor plies the oar, but propels itself along stem foremost by a muscular action, which by alternately compressing and loosening a kind of siphon, throws out jets or gushes of water, which by the resistance they meet with from the surrounding fluid, give the desired onward motion, and away the swimmer goes, his long arms gathered closely together, and streaming behind like the tail of a comet, and its round eyes keeping a sharp look-out on either side. Should it espy danger, the body and limbs are withdrawn into the shell, and the fluid driven through the central tube, so as to compress the air in the pearly cells, and down sinks the swimmer once again to his native depths, where
“The floor is of sand like the mountain drift, And the pearl shells’ spangle the flinty snow; And from coral rocks the sea-plants lift Their boughs where the tides and billows flow, The water is calm and still below. For the winds and waves are absent there; And the sands are bright as the stars that glow In the motionless fields of upper air. And life in rare and beautiful forms, Is sporting amid those bowers of stone, And is safe, when the wrathful spirit of storms, Has made the top of the waves his own.”
We give below two figures of the Argonaut, one of which represents him crawling at the bottom of the sea, and the other swimming on the surface.
[Illustration]
The True, or Pearly Nautilus, (_N. Pompilius_,) the origin of whose specific name we have been unable to discover, is much like the Argonaut in appearance and general construction; the shell is externally smoother and more iridescent, it is also generally somewhat thicker than the former kind, and has internally more chambers or divisions; its pearly lustre renders it a beautiful ornament, and the large size it frequently attains a very conspicuous one. Its inhabitant has several peculiarities of organization, which distinguish it from the Argonauts, but into these we need not enter; neither can we pause to describe the other species of nautili, the shells of which, like those of the Cowry and other univalves, are covered with a membrane which hides their beauty. This membrane or mantle sometimes extends some distance beyond the edge of the shell, and, being of a light and filmy appearance, may have been mistaken for a sail hoisted by the creature to catch the breeze, while its long arms, thrust up into the air or down into the water, may have been thought to be masts or oars, so that the poets are not so much to be blamed, if they say as Wordsworth does.
“Spread, tiny Nautilus, the living sail, Dive at thy choice, or catch the freshening gale.”
Nearly allied to the Nautili are these beautiful fossil shells called Ammonites, from their fancied resemblance to the horns of a heathen deity or god, called Jupiter Ammon. These shells, at once the wonder and pride of geologists, are found in the chalk formations, and thousands of years must have passed away since they were inhabited by living creatures. The Nautili which swam and sported with them at the depths of the ocean, as is proved by the shells of many species found in the same chalky deposits, have still their living representatives, but those winding galleries and pearly chambers once fragile as paper and brittle as glass, now turned into, and surrounded by solid stone, are all shells of extinct species, and we can hardly see and handle them without some degree of awe and reverence; when we reflect on the great and wonderful changes that have passed over the earth since they were formed by a hand divine, instinct with the breath of life, and then to be embedded in the rock as everlasting characters by which the unborn generations of men might read in history of those changes, and of the providential dealings of God with his creatures. Of these Ammonites, and other fossil shells, much more will have to be said in our proposed geological volume; the poem which follows will very appropriately conclude the above remarks, and our present little work on shells—beautiful, wonderful shells! useful, ornamental, instructive! The subject is one which we would earnestly invite our young readers to study: it is but here introduced; we have picked up a few, very few, of the wonders and beauties of conchology, and presented them to their notice in the hope that they may be induced to desire a more intimate acquaintance with this branch of natural science, which has been hitherto greatly neglected. To understand it thoroughly, much attention and perseverance will be required, but even a slight acquaintance with it will yield both pleasure and profit to the mind.
[Illustration: NAUTILUS.]
[Illustration: AMMONITE.]
THE NAUTILUS AND THE AMMONITE.
The Nautilus and the Ammonite, Were launched in storm and strife; Each sent to float in its tiny boat, On the wide, 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.
And their’s was a bliss more fair than this, That we feel in our colder time; For they were rife in a tropic life, In a brighter, happier clime.
They swam ’mid isles whose summer smiles No wintry winds annoy; Whose groves were palm, whose air was balm, Whose life was only joy.
They roam’d all day through creek and bay, And travers’d the ocean deep; And at night they sank on a coral bank, In its fairy bowers to sleep.
And the monsters vast of ages past, They beheld in their ocean caves; And saw them ride in their power and pride, And sink in their billowy graves.
Thus hand in hand, from strand to strand, They sail’d in mirth and glee; Those fairy shells, with their crystal cells, Twin creatures of the sea.
But they came at last to a sea long past, And as they reach’d its shore, The Almighty’s breath spake out in death, And the Ammonite liv’d no more.
And the Nautilus now in its shelly prow, As o’er the deep it strays, Still seems to seek in bay and creek, Its companion of other days.
And thus do we, in life’s stormy sea, As we roam from shore to shore; While tempest-tost, seek the lov’d—the lost, But find them on earth no more!
G. F. RICHARDSON.
[Illustration: Plate I.]
[Illustration: Plate II.]
[Illustration: Plate III.]
[Illustration: Plate IV.]
[Illustration: Plate V.]
[Illustration: Plate VI.]
[Illustration: Plate VII.]
[Illustration: Plate VIII.]
INDEX.
PAGE.
INTRODUCTION.
What are Shells iii
Conchology iv
Beauty and Value of Shells vi
Uses of Shells viii
The Inhabitants of Shells xi
Malacology _ib_
Classification of Shells xii
Taking and Preserving Shells xiii
The Cabinet _ib_
On Cleaning and Polishing Shells xv
Fossil Shells _ib_
UNIVALVES.
The Common Snail 18
Fresh-water Shells 23
The Whelk 26
Rock Shells 27
Periwinkle 29
Trochus, or Top-Shell 31
Cones, Volutes, Mitres, and Olives 35
Cowries 38
BIVALVES.
The Oyster 41
Pearls 49
The Mussel and the Cockle 51
Scallop Shells 57
Limpits 59
Bock-borers 61
MULTIVALVES.
The Chitons 63
Barnacles 64
Cuttle Fish 67
Nautilus and Ammonite 71
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