Poetical Zoölogy [pp. 141-144]

APPLETONS' JO URNAL.
which it is not; and the epithet of "venomous,"
which Milton applies to it in his picture of Satan, is
singularly inaccurate. In reality, the toad is one of
the most harmless and inoffensive creatures in existence. Let it alone, and it will hop out of your way;
the fluid which exudes from some parts of its body
is innocuous; and its bite produces nothing but a
very slight inflammation. On the other hand, it is extremely useful in devouring grubs and vermin injurious to plants, and hence enjoys the special protection of the gardener.
What citadel apparently more impregnable could
be imagined than the hard and firmly-closed shell of
the oyster to a sprawling, flexible starfish? Nevertheless, it is forced and captured; but not in the
manner popularly supposed. The impression has
prevailed that the oyster, being on the alert, and suspecting the design of the radiate enemy, closes upon
him, and holds him fast by the intruding limb. Upon
this, the assailant, finding captivity and death inevitable unless something is done, submits to amputation in order to preserve life and freedom. But the
starfish has no occasion thus to thrust its paws into
the mouth of danger; on the contrary, its mode of
procedure is most unique. Having seized upon the
prey with its arms, it proceeds coolly to turn its own
stomach inside out. It then instills between the
shelly valves some torpifying fluid, which deprives
the inmate of strength, and soon compels it to open
the doors of its dwelling. This done, the starfish
pushes in its stomach, which enwraps the oyster, and
uncourteously digests it in its own shell.
In Ireland, and elsewhere, there exists a common
species of starfish known as the "devil's hands," or
the "devil's fingers," and children have a superstitious dread of touching them. One singular fact
with regard to them is worthy of mention. On being
captured, they proceed unceremoniously to dissolve
themselves and fall in pieces, to the disappointment
of the exulting naturalist who has dredged them up,
as if under the influence of intense alarm, or highly
indignant at being taken. Brittle stars, indeed! It
would be a somewhat parallel case if an individual,
when arrested in the streets, were to throw his arms
and legs upon the pavement, and jerk off his head
for the astonished policeman to catch.
It has frequently been said that the first example
of the art of navigation was given to mankind by a
mollusk common in the Mediterranean, the name of
this mollusk being the nautilus, or argonaut. It is
usually represented with six arms, extending over the
sides of the shell, as if to act as oars; and two arms,
which have broad disks upraised, as if to act as sails.
Much beautiful poetry has been devoted to the celebration bf this zoological error:
"Learn of the little nautilus to sail,
Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale,"
says Pope. Montgomery, in his picture of the nautilus, writes:
"The native pilot of this little bark
Put out a tier of oars on either side,
Spread to the wafting breeze a twofold sail,
And mounted up and glided down the billow
In happy freedom."
And Byron this:
"The tender nautilus who steers his firow,
The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe,
The ocean Mab, the fairy of the sea,
Seems far less fragile, and, alas! more free."
Unhappily for the poets, the nautilus never moves
in the manner here described. It can creep along
the bottom of the deep; it can rise to the surface
and float, moving backward through the water like
other cuttle-fish. But the arms are not used as oars,
and those which have the expanded membranous
disk are never hoisted as sails. The sole purpose of
these limbs is the secretion of the substance of the
shell, both for its repair when injured and for the enlargement which the growth of the animal may require.
In the fossiliferous rocks the nautilus occurs
among the earliest traces of the world's animal life.
It continued through the long ages during which the
family of its conqueror, the ammonite, was created,
flourished, and became extinct. Mrs. Howitt has
made this fact the subject of some graceful lines,
which are not accurate, however, as to the formation
of the stratified rocks, the habits of the mollusk, or
the disappearance of its cousin-german:
" Thou didst laugh at sun and breeze,
In the new-created seas;
Thou wast with the reptile broods
In the old sea solitudes,
Sailing in the new-made light,
With the curled-up ammonite.
Thou surviv'dst the awful shock,
Which turned the ocean-bed to rock,
And changed its myriad living swarms
To the marble's veined forms.
" Thou wast there; thy little boat,
Airy voyager! kept afloat.
O'er the waters wild and dismal,
O'er the yawning gulfs abysmal;
Amid wreck and overturning,
Rock imbedding, heaving, burning,
'Mid the tumult and the stir;
Thou, most ancient mariner,
In that pearly boat of thine,
Sail'dst upon the troubled brine."
It remains to be said that the stratified rocks were
formed by slow deposition, often in tranquil waters,
and not by sudden catastrophes; that the ammonites
did not perish from convulsive movements of land
and sea; but that the family runs through all the
formations from the silurian to the chalk, had its
greatest development in the O0litic period, and gradually died out.
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