So Marsovino went on: “A ray is a fish, in shape like a large fan. It has a very long tail, which it uses as a weapon.”
“To what class of fishes does it belong?” asked Pinocchio.
“It belongs to the same class as the lampreys, which look like snakes, the torpedo,—”
“Be careful never to touch that fellow,” here interrupted Tursio.
“—the sawfish and the squaloids,—that is, the common shark and the hammerhead.”
“The saw? The hammer?” observed Pinocchio. “If I find them, I must keep them for my father. He is a carpenter, but so poor that he seldom has money with which to buy tools.”
“Let us hope that you will never meet the saw, the terrible hammerhead, or even the common shark,” said Tursio.
Pinocchio made no answer, but in his heart he kept thinking, “I am very much afraid that the dolphins are teaching me, not I the dolphins.”
Tursio then handed Pinocchio a small shell of very strange shape. It looked like a helmet.
“Wear this, Pinocchio,” he said. “It will make a pretty cap for you.”