d
the nautilus was carefully embalmed within it.

"If you can obtain another, which we can dissect, you will have rendered
Mr Hooker and me the greatest possible service," he exclaimed
enthusiastically. "Us, did I say!--the whole scientific world at large.
You will deserve to become a member of all the societies of Europe--the
most honourable distinction which a man of any age might desire to
obtain."

Of course we undertook to manufacture a further number of fish-pots, and
to place them out in deep water, where we might have a chance of
catching another of these creatures. We measured the hole they would
require for entering, and discovered that out of the number we had made,
the one which had caught the nautilus was the only one with a hole
sufficiently large to allow it to enter.

"But surely, uncle, the nautilus has sails by which it glides over the
water," said Emily, as she was examining the creature.

"In the imagination of the poets only, my niece," he answered. "The
shells often float from their excessive lightness, in consequence of the
air contained in certain chambers within them. It is then often swept
away by wind or tide to some neighbouring shore. Thus large numbers of
the shells are found thrown up on the beach. The animal, however, when
alive, floats occasionally with its shell on the surface; but I doubt
much whether it has any power of locomotion beyond that which the wind
or current gives it."

"How disappointing!" exclaimed Emily and Grace together. "We always
thought that it had tiny sails, which it spread to the breeze; and
pictured it to ourselves skimming on the calm surface, and delighting in
its freedom and rapidity of movement."

"There is, no doubt, an abundance of wonders in Nature, young ladies,"
said Mr Hooker, "but a more intimate acquaintance with the habits of
animals will often dispel some of the common ideas which have been
connected with them, albeit in many instances held for centuries. For
instance, till within a very late period people believed that the
upas-tree, which grows in Java, possessed such noxious qualities that it
destroyed all vegetable life in the neighbourhood. The sap is,
undoubtedly, a poison; but I believe people may sleep under its boughs
without receiving the slightest injury, though perhaps, were any of the
sap to fall from the tree and to enter a wound, it would prove fatal.
Once upon a time people believed that the barnacles which are found