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identical with that dye for which Tyre was so celebrated when its "merchants were princes, and its traffickers the honourable of the earth;" and which was reserved for the brilliant hangings of temples, or the costly robes of priests and kings. By what shell this dye was produced, and how it was extracted, have been questions respecting which much difference of opinion has prevailed.

Mr. Wilde, when visiting the ruins of Tyre in 1838, found on the shore a number of round holes cut in the solid sand-stone rock; within them, and on the adjacent beach, were masses consisting of large quantities of broken shells. He inferred that the shells had been placed in those holes or mortars to be pounded in the manner mentioned by Pliny, for the purpose of extracting the fluid which the animal contained. This opinion received confirmation, from his finding that the broken shells belonged to a species of Murex,

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Fig. 125.-MUREX.

one of those from which the Tyrian dye is known to have been obtained; and also from the same species being still found, in a living state, on the adjoining beach. The genus contains shells of great beauty (Fig. 125), some of which are furnished with long and delicate spines.

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CLASS III.-CUTTLE FISHES.

Fig. 126. CALAMARY.

CEPHALOPODA.

If we look at a Cuttle-fish (Fig. 126), we notice that the head is surrounded by a number of appendages; this peculiarity is implied

in the scientific term by which the class is named.

Fig. 127. PEARLY NAUTILUS, WITH SHELL LAID OPEN.

In many important points of structure, this class is superior to any of the preceding ones; and here we notice the existence of a true internal skele

ton, of a peculiar kind, the first approach to the most obvious characteristic of the higher tribes of animals.

Though the shell of the Pearly Nau

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tilus (Fig. 127) is common in museums, the capture of the living animal is of rare occurrence. We know, however, that

it occupies only the outer chamber of its shell, and that it can rise to the surface or descend at pleasure. Similar in structure and in powers were the Ammonites (Figs. 128, 129),

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which, at former periods of the earth's history, must have been living in its seas, though now known only as fossil.

Other Cuttle-fishes abound in all seas, and are arranged in two divisions, according as they have eight or ten arms. To the latter group belongs the Loligo or Calamary (Fig. 126) the common Sepia or Cuttle-fish-and the Loligopsis (Fig. 130), so remarkable for the great length of one pair of its arms. All possess a shell or internal skeleton, differing in form and structure in different species; all are furnished with a powerful horny beak for tearing up their prey, and with an ink-bag, from which, at pleasure, they can emit a fluid which darkens the water and favours their escape from their enemies.

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Of the eight-armed division, the most interesting species is

Fig. 130-LOLIGOPSIS.

the Argonaut or Paper Nautilus, regarded as giving to man the first example of the art of navigation. It has been usually represented, as in the annexed figure (Fig. 131), with six arms extended over the sides of its little vessel to act as oars, and two others upraised as sails. Such being the universal belief, poets have not failed to celebrate its nautical powers. Thus, Montgomery has given us a picture so exquisitely finished, that even the naturalist can scarcely

bring himself to wish that it were different:

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"Light as a flake of foam upon the wind,
Keel upward from the deep emerged a shell,
Shaped like the moon ere half her horn is fill'd;
Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose,
And moved at will along the yielding water.
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, pleased to feel the air,

And wander in the luxury of light."-PELICAN ISLAND.

CUTTLE-FISHES.

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