Fig. 45. Fac-simile of the Commemorative Painting in the Church of St. Malne, France. neighbors. Surrounding the mouth is a circle of eight strong arms many times the length of the body, while staring out from either side of the head, between the bases of the arms, is a pair of large glassy eyes, which send a shudder over the beholder. At the bottom of the sea the poulp turns its eight arms downward, and walks like a huge submarine spider, thrusting its arms into the crevices of the rocks, and extracting thence the luckless crab that had thought itself secure in its narrow retreat from the Fig. 46. Section through the shell and animal of the Pearly Nautilus attacks of so bulky a foe. This is the "Devil Fish" so graphically but so unscientifically described by Victor Hugo. Each of the arms is covered with what are called suckers, designed for producing adhesion to the object grasped. Each sucker consists of a little, elevated, circular horny ridge, forming a little cup, closed at the bottom by a flexible membrane which is attached to the arm by a stem. The consequence is, that when the arm is pressed upon an object, the bottom of each cup, like a piston, is pressed inward by the action of the stem or piston-rod, which is moved by the pressure of the arm. The effort to escape from the grasp of this arm withdraws the piston back to the bottom of the cup, thus producing a vacuum within, and causing a suction which effectually retains the object. Could any piece of mechanism be more admirable? The poulp, also called octopus (eight-footed), sometimes attains a formidable size, and sailors relate terrible stories of those found in the African seas. According to Denys de Montfort, Dens, a navigator, avowed that while three of his men were engaged in scraping the side of the ship, one of these monsters reached up from the water its long and flexible arms, and drew two of the men into the sea. One was never rescued, and the other, after his escape, became delirious and died. This was probably a "sailor's yarn," since the Frenchman who narrated it afterward represented a Kraken octopod" in the act of scuttling a three-master (Fig. 45), and told M. Defrance that, if this Fig. 47. Fragment of a straight were "swallowed," he would, in his next edition, represent the monster chambered Shell (Ormoceras tenuifilum), showing a large annulated central siphon. embracing the Straits of Gibraltar, or capsizing a whole. squadron of ships. Little reliance as can be placed in the Fig. 4. Trocholites ammonius. A marvelous stories of "those who go down to the sea in ships," it is well authenticated that some of these octopods attain fearful dimensions, being the largest invertebrates known. Milne-Edwards, an eminent Parisian naturalist, has expressed the con coiled-chambered shell of the viction that the unexplored depths of the ocean conceal the Trenton period. forms of octopods that far surpass in magnitude any of the species known to science. The common cuttle-fish of our own coast is a much more harmless animal, attaining a length of only ten or twelve inches. The calamary of Fig. 49. Clymenia Sedgwickii. New York Harbor has ten arms, two of which are much longer than the others. The reader is probably familiar with the sepia used in tinting with water-colors. This is the ink of the cuttle-fish and its allies. It is preserved by the animal in a little bag, from which it is ejected on the approach of danger, thus producing a cloud, under cover of which the animal escapes. Here is the prototype of the fog which sophistry raises, and under cover of which it retreats, when finding itself in unequal conflict with truth. India ink, it has been stated, is manufactured by the Chinese from the same substance, though it is probable they employ only lampblack and glue, or vegetable gum. The ink-bags of some ancient cuttle-fishes have been found in a fossil state. Dr. Buckland had drawings of extinct species executed in their own ink. Fig. 50. Goniatites Allei (from the These all are cephalopods, the first class among molluscs, the aristocracy of shellfish, often exercising dominion over beings with higher intelligence, but a weaker arm, just as brawny force has always done. But the forms described belong to the highest of the two orders of the class, None, save the "paper nautilus," have had external shells. The animals of the lower order are incased in shells which are long, tapering tubes, divided at regular intervals by transverse partitions. The paper nautilus and his allies have all lived in a later age of the world than that of which I have been speaking. The "pearly nautilus" is the only living representative of the lower order-an order which swarmed in the seas of the Paleozoic and Mesozoic Times. The pearly nautilus is closely coiled (Fig. 46); its shell is divided at frequent intervals by smooth partitions concave anteriorly, the animal occupying only the space in front of the last one. A shelly tube runs through the middle of all these chambers to the farther extremity of the shell. Through this a ligament passes from the body of the animal, and anchors it securely in the last chamber. This tube is called the siphon. Such is the structure of the pearly nautilus, which may be seen in myriads, on a calm day, floating on the surface of the waters of the South Pacific. Fig. 51. Fragment of Straight-chambered Shell (Baculites ovatus) of Mesozoic Time, belonging to the Ammonite family. The reader will certainly thank me for introducing here a beautiful poem on "the Chambered Nautilus," though the author has committed the error of supposing it was this species of nautilus to which the Aristotelian fable of the fairy sailor applied. "This is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, The venturous bark that flings |