Volume I Part 28 (1/2)
_You round Echinus ray his arrowy mail, Give the keel'd Nautilus his oar and sail.
Firm to his rock with silver cords suspend The anch.o.r.ed Pinna, and his Cancer-friend_.
CANTO III. l. 67.
The armour of the Echinus, or Sea-hedge Hog, consists generally of moveable spines; (_Linnei System. Nat._ Vol. I. p. 1102.) and in that respect resembles the armour of the land animal of the same name. The irregular protuberances on other sea-sh.e.l.ls, as on some species of the Purpura, and Murex, serve them as a fortification against the attacks of their enemies.
It is said that this animal foresees tempestuous weather, and sinking to the bottom of the sea adheres firmly to sea-plants, or other bodies by means of a substance which resembles the horns of snails. Above twelve hundred of these fillets have been counted by which this animal fixes itself; and when afloat, it contracts these fillets between the bases of its points, the number of which often amounts to two thousand. Dict raisonne. art. Oursin. de mer.
There is a kind of Nautilus, called by Linneus, Argonauta, whose sh.e.l.l has but one cell; of this animal Pliny affirms, that having exonerated its sh.e.l.l by throwing out the water, it swims upon the surface, extending a web of wonderful tenuity, and bending back two of its arms and rowing with the rest, makes a sail, and at length receiving the water dives again. Plin. IX. 29. Linneus adds to his description of this animal, that like the Crab Diogenes or Bernhard, it occupies a house not its own, as it is not connected to its sh.e.l.l, and is therefore foreign to it; who could have given credit to this if it had not been attested by so many who have with their own eyes seen this argonaut in the act of sailing? Syst. Nat p. 1161.
The Nautilus, properly so named by Linneus, has a sh.e.l.l consisting of many chambers, of which cups are made in the East with beautiful painting and carving on the mother-pearl. The animal is said to inhabit only the uppermost or open chamber, which is larger than the rest; and that the rest remain empty except that the pipe, or siphunculus, which communicates from one to the other of them is filled with an appendage of the animal like a gut or string. Mr. Hook in his Philos. Exper. p.
306, imagines this to be a dilatable or compressible tube, like the air- bladders of fish, and that by contracting or permitting it to expand, it renders its sh.e.l.l boyant or the contrary. See Note on Ulva, Vol. II.
The Pinna, or Sea-wing, is contained in a two-valve sh.e.l.l, weighing sometimes fifteen pounds, and emits a beard of fine long glossy silk- like fibres, by which it is suspended to the rocks twenty or thirty feet beneath the surface of the sea. In this situation it is so successfully attacked by the eight-footed Polypus, that the species perhaps could not exist but for the exertions of the Cancer Pinnotheris, who lives in the same sh.e.l.l as a guard and companion. Amoen. Academ. Vol. II. p. 48. Lin.
Syst. Nat. Vol. I. p. 1159, and p. 1040.
The Pinnotheris, or Pinnophylax, is a small crab naked like Bernard the Hermit, but is furnished with good eyes, and lives in the same sh.e.l.l with the Pinna; when they want food the Pinna opens its sh.e.l.l, and sends its faithful ally to forage; but if the Cancer sees the Polypus, he returns suddenly to the arms of his blind hostess, who by closing the sh.e.l.l avoids the fury of her enemy; otherwise, when it has procured a booty, it brings it to the opening of the sh.e.l.l, where it is admitted, and they divide the prey. This was observed by Haslequist in his voyage to Palestine.
The Byssus of the antients, according to Aristotle, was the beard of the Pinna above mentioned, but seems to have been used by other writers indiscriminately for any spun material, which was esteemed finer or more valuable than wool. Reaumur says the threads of this Byssus are not less fine or less beautiful than the silk, as it is spun by the silk-worm; the Pinna on the coasts of Italy and Provence (where it is fished up by iron-hooks fixed on long poles) is called the silk-worm of the sea. The stockings and gloves manufactured from it, are of exquisite fineness, but too warm for common wear, and are thence esteemed useful in rhumatism and gout. Dict. raisonne art. Pinne-marine. The warmth of the Byssus, like that of silk, is probably owing to their being bad conductors of heat, as well as of electricity. When these fibres are broken by violence, this animal as well as the muscle has the power to reproduce them like the common spiders, as was observed by M. Adanson.
As raw silk, and raw cobwebs, when swallowed, are liable to produce great sickness (as I am informed) it is probable the part of muscles, which sometimes disagrees with the people who eat them, may be this silky web, by which they attach themselves to stones. The large kind of Pinna contains some mother-pearl of a reddish tinge, according to M.
d'Argenville. The substance sold under the name of Indian weed, and used at the bottom of fish-lines, is probably a production of this kind; which however is scarcely to be distinguished by the eye from the tendons of a rat's tail, after they have been separated by putrefaction in water, and well cleaned and rubbed; a production, which I was once shewn as a great curiosity; it had the uppermost bone of the tail adhering to it, and was said to have been used as an ornament in a lady's hair.
NOTE XXVIII.--STURGEON.
_With worm-like hard his toothless lips array, And teach the unweildy Sturgeon to betray._
CANTO III. l. 71.
The Sturgeon, _Acipenser, Strurio._ Lin. Syst. Nat. Vol. I. p. 403. is a fish of great curiosity as well as of great importance; his mouth is placed under the head, without teeth, like the opening of a purse, which he has the power to push suddenly out or retract. Before this mouth under the beak or nose hang four tendrils some inches long, and which so resemble earth-worms that at first sight they may be mistaken for them.
This clumsy toothless fish is supposed by this contrivance to keep himself in good condition, the solidity of his flesh evidently shewing him to be a fish of prey. He is said to hide his large body amongst the weeds near the sea-coast, or at the mouths of large rivers, only exposing his cirrhi or tendrils, which small fish or sea-insects mistaking for real worms approach for plunder, and are sucked into the jaws of their enemy. He has been supposed by some to root into the soil at the bottom of the sea or rivers; but the cirrhi, or tendrills abovementioned, which hang from his snout over his mouth, must themselves be very inconvenient for this purpose, and as it has no jaws it evidently lives by suction, and during its residence in the sea a quant.i.ty of sea-insects are found in its stomach.
The flesh was so valued in the time of the Emperor Severus, that it was brought to table by servants with coronets on their heads, and preceded by music, which might give rise to its being in our country presented by the Lord Mayor to the King. At present it is caught in the Danube, and the Walga, the Don, and other large rivers for various purposes. The skin makes the best covering for carriages; isingla.s.s is prepared from parts of the skin; cavear from the sp.a.w.n; and the flesh is pickled or salted, and sent all over Europe.
NOTE XXIX.--OIL ON WATER.