Читать книгу The Book of Shells. Containing the Classes Mollusca, Conchifera, Cirrhipeda, Annulata, and Crustacea онлайн

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SHELL OF THE NAUTILUS; AND THE SEA-PEN,

OR INTERNAL SHELL OF THE LOLIGO.

Although this is the only instance of the animal itself having been brought to this country, there is but little doubt of its having been frequently taken, but as the shell was the object of the captors, and not its inhabitant the latter has been thrown away as useless. An office in his Majesty’s Navy found a Nautilus in a hole in a reef of rocks, near an island on the Eastern coast of Africa; the mantle of the fish, like a thin membrane, covered the shell, which was drawn in as soon as it was touched, and the elegant shell was then displayed. “I and others,” says the same informant, “when it was first seen did not notice it, regarding the animal, as the membrane enveloped the shell, merely as a piece of blubber; but having touched it by accident, the membranous covering was drawn in, and we soon secured our beautiful prize.”

Rumphius, a German naturalist, appears to have been acquainted with its habits; he says, “When he thus floats upon the water, he puts out his head, and all his barbs, and spreads them on the water, with the poop of the shell above water: but at the bottom he creeps in a reverse position, with his boat above him, and with his head and barbs upon the ground, making a tolerably quick progress. He keeps himself chiefly on the ground, creeping sometimes also into the nets of the fishermen: but after a storm, as the weather becomes calm, they are seen in troops floating on the water, being driven up by the agitation of the waves. This sailing, however, is not of long continuance, for having taken in all their tentacles, they upset their boat, and so return to the bottom.”