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THE: OCTO?rwUs:
OR,
he «| DEVIL-FISH *. OF BICTION AND
OF FACT:
SMITHSONTAN
INSTITUTION
Bis SE
THE OCTOPUS
(Octopus vulgarvs.)
QL,
1303,
Noll: Age NMOL ES:
THE OCTOPUS:
OR,
THE “DEVIL-FISH” OF FICTION AND OF FACT.
By HENRY LEE,
BAS MGS. (2S), ad,
NATURALIST OF THE BRIGHTON AQUARIUM.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
1875.
_ LONDON:
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
{ Bedicate this ltttle Wook
TO MY VENERABLE FRIEND,
De: [AMES SCOTT BOWEKBANK,
Bees cc,
ONE OF THE ORIGINATORS OF THE WATER VIVARIUM ;
TO WHOSE VALUABLE ADVICE AND CHEERING ENCOURAGEMENT
I, LIKE MANY OTHERS, AM INDEBTED FOR THE CONFIRMATION
AND INCREASE OF AN EARLY LOVE OF THE
STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY.
PREPAC BE:
—4—
WHEN I accepted the position of Naturalist of the
Brighton Aquarium, after the death of my valued friend
John Keast Lord, it became my pleasant duty to watch
and record events and circumstances connected with the
habits and development of the denizens of the tanks.
My notes of observations have, from time to time,
appeared in the Natural History columns of Land and
Water, and have been honoured by frequent quotation
in the Zzmes and other newspapers. Grateful for the
kind reception accorded to them in their original form,
I re-publish them with considerable additions. They have,
in fact, been almost entirely re-written. I venture to hope
that they may be interesting to the public, and of some
little value to science.
I have always endeavoured to observe carefully, to
describe faithfully, to record facts rather than to propound
theories, and to relate what I have seen and learned in
Janguage comprehensible by all.
Vil PREPACE.
With excellent opportunities of studying the habits and
movements of living cephalopods, and with dead specimens
of these animals on the table before me, I have followed,
scalpel in hand, the minute description of their anatomy
given by Professor Owen, in his masterly treatise in the
b
‘“‘Cyclopedia of Anatomy,” and by De Ferrussac and
D’Orbigny in their splendid monograph on the same
subject ; the two great sources from which almost all,
if not all, subsequent writers have drawn much of their
information. Quotations from other authors will be found
duly noted.
I am indebted to my friend Mr. Thomas Davidson,
FLRUS., “&e;, for ‘the beautiful portrait of ‘the’ Octopus
which forms the frontispiece to this volume; to Mrs.
Edward Harris for the drawing of its eggs (fig. 6); to
Miss Gertrude Woodward for that of its tongue (fig. 4) ;
and to Messrs. West and Co., and Mr. Charles A. Ferrier,.
for the care they have respectively bestowed on the
lithographing and engraving of the illustrations.
HENRY LEE:
BRIGHTON AQUARIUM,
August, 1875.
CONTENTS.
a ee
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER EL
THE OCTOPUS AND ITS RELATIVES.
CHAPTER. il:
OCTOPODS I HAVE KNOWN .
CHAPTER iE
“* THE TOILERS OF THE SEA”
CHAPTER IV.
THE DEVIL-FISH OF FICTION AND OF FACT
CHAPTER V.
THE OCTOPUS OUT OF WATER °
CHATTER. VI.
NEW LIMBS FOR OLD ONES e °
CHAPTER VII.
SPAWNING OF THE OCTOPUS .
19
37
49
56
x CONTENTS.
CHAPTER VIII
§ PAGE
“CUTTLES AND SQUIDS. E é 5 alae : - : : 5 AGF,
CHAPTER SLX.
ECONOMIC VALUE OF CUTTLE-FISHES . c . : : oe ee
CHAPTER, (2X:
GIGANTIC CUTTLE-FISHES . ° ° . ° . * . = Og
Eist OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
——_4—
FIG, PAGE
THE OCTOPUS (Octopus vulgaris) . : ‘ : : Frontispiece.
I. THE PAPER NAUTILUS (Arvgonauta Argo). : : . Pe 5
2. SUCKER OF THE OCTOPUS . : : é : : : Sa ie
3. MANDIBLES OF THE OCTOPUS . . : ‘ : ; pet Oa ae
4. TONGUE OF THE OCTOPUS . : ; : ‘ wal 2G
5: THE OCTOPUS SWIMMING. : : : ‘ : : i i uinaeaits
6. EGGS OF THE OCTOPUS. : d - “ : : : + 58
7. THE COMMON CUTTLE-FISH (Sepia officinalis) . é : Pais POT
$. SEPIOLA RONDELETII . : é ° ; A : ; 70
9. THE COMMON SQUID (Loligo vulearis) . ‘ : : Beans iil
10, EGGS OF THE CUTTLE-FISH (Sepia officinalis) : ; : eae &
iI. SPAWN OF THE COMMON SQUID (Loligo vulgaris) . . ee re he
12. FAC-SIMILE OF DE MONTFORT’S “ Poulpe Colossal” . : ~ FOR
s
IN TRODUEG TION.
ep
More than 2200 years ago—nearly four centuries before the
Evangelists wrote their imperishable histories of the events on
which the faith of Christendom is based—Aristotle, the cele-
brated naturalist of Stageira, in Macedonia, recorded observa-
tions of the habits and reproduction of the Octopus which clearly
show that he was more intimately acquainted with its mode of
life than any writer of a later date between his day and ours.
For how many centuries before his time facts and fallacies
concerning this curious animal were handed down from father
to son in oral tradition, and from generation to generation in
manuscript, ages before printing was invented, it is impossible
to say: he occasionally quotes from the works of previous
writers, and Strabo tells us that he had a good collection of
books, and was the first philosopher who possessed a library of
his own. But the faint glimmering of information to be derived
from early bookish lore was insufficient to satisfy his desire and
that of his sovereign for more complete and perfect knowledge.
Alexander the Great, who, in his youth, was under his tuition for
ten years, gave him, therefore, the means of extending his re-
searches, by placing at his disposal a large sum of money and a
staff of assistants. According to Pliny the latter were sent to
various parts of Asia and Greece under orders to collect animals
of all kinds, and by means of vivaria, fishponds, aviaries, &c.,
XIV INTRODUCTION.
“to watch their habits so closely that nothing relating to them
should remain unknown.” Aristotle thus accumulated a multi-
tude of notes and observations, many of which, though ridiculed
and discredited by later zoologists, were marvellously accurate ;
and from them constructed a work elaborate in its details, grand
in its conception and idea, and comprehensive as a general
history of the Animal Kingdom.
Amongst the inhabitants of the sea therein described by him
is, as I have said, the Octopus or Polypus, and many of his state-
ments concerning it and its congeners have been remarkably
confirmed by recent observations. This animal has, therefore,
been long known to naturalists. The ancient Egyptians figured
it amongst their hieroglyphics;* the Greeks and Romans were
well acquainted with it; and since the time of Homer many of
the ancient poets and authors have mentioned it in their works.
There is little doubt that the idea of the Lernean Hydra, whose
heads grew again when cut off by Hercules, originated from a
knowledge of the Octopus. Diodorus relates of it that it had
a hundred heads ; Simonides says fifty; but the generally received
statement is that of Apollodorus, Hyginus, &c., that it had only
nine. Reduce the number by one, and we have an animal with
* An interesting proof that the ancient Egyptians were also acquainted with
other cephalopods has been communicated to me by Mr. Eugenius Birch, the
architect of the Brighton Aquarium. Whilst on a journey to Nubia, up the
Nile, in January, 1875, he visited the temple of Bayr-el-Bahree, Thebes (date,
1700 B.C.), the entrance to which had been deeply buried beneath the light,
wind-drifted sand accumulated during many centuries. By order of the Khedive
access was recently obtained to its interior by the excavation and removal of
this deep deposit ; and amongst the hieroglyphics on the walls were found,
between the zig-zag horizontal lines which represent water, figures of various
fishes so accurately portrayed as to be easily identified. With them was the
outline of a squid 14 inches long. As this temple is 500 miles from the
delta of the Nile it is remarkable that nearly all the fishes there represented are
of marine species.
INTRODGCTION: XV
eight out-growths from its trunk—the type of an Octopus, which
is really capable of rapidly developing afresh, and replacing by
new ones, one or all of its eight limbs in case of their being
amputated or injured.* According to the legend, Hercules dipped
his arrow-heads in the gall of the hydra, and, from its poisonous
nature, all the wounds he inflicted with them on his enemies
proved fatal. It is worthy of notice that the ancients attributed
to the Octopus the possession of a similarly venomous secretion.
Thus Oppian writes :—
** The crawling preke a deadly juice contains,
Injected poison fires the wounded veins.”
Fishermen have been familiar with this animal from time
immemorial; but in modern days, although naturalists have
occasionally noted some peculiarities of its structure and habits,
public attention was never particularly attracted to it until,
within the last few years, Victor Hugo brought it again into
notice by the publication of his “ Zes Zravailleurs de la Mer.”
Since then it has been constantly exhibited in aquaria, and.
“Octopus” has become a household word.
* See page 49.
J pir i iy,
" ah an se grees
i Of
¥
THE OCTOPUS.
CHAPTER? |S.
THE OCTOPUS AND ITS RELATIVES.
Ir is not my intention to formally portray the anatomy of the
Octopus,—the nature and uses of its various organs will be
sufficiently indicated in the course of my remarks,—but before
giving an account of its life-history and habits, I will briefly
describe its affinities, and the position it occupies in the scale ot
Nature.
One of the great primary groups or divisions of the Animal
Kingdom is that of the soft-bodied Motiusca ; which includes
the cuttle, the oyster, the snail, &c. It has been separated into
five “classes,” of which the one we have especially to notice is the
Cephalopoda,* or ‘‘ head-footed,”’—the animals belonging to it
having their feet, or the organs which correspond with the foot of
other molluscs, so attached to the head as to form a circle or
coronet round the mouth. Some of these have the foot divided
into eight lobes, and are therefore called the Octopoda: + others
have, in addition to the eight feet, lobes, or arms, two longer
tentacular appendages, making ten in all, and are consequently
called the Decapoda.
* From the Greek words cephale, the head ; and oda, feet.
+ From océo, eight ; and fous (foda), feet.
2 Lie OCTOPUS.
Of the ten-footed section of the cephalopods, there are four
“families”; two only of which exist in Britain—the Teuthide, and
the Sepiide. The Teuthidz are the Squids, or Calamaries,
represented by the long-bodied ZLolfzgo vulgaris, that has along its
back a gristly, translucent stiffener, shaped like a quill pen; from
which and its ink it derives its names of ‘‘ calamary,” “‘ pen-and-ink
fish,” and ‘‘sea-clerk.” The Sepiidz are the Cuttles ; as a type
of which we may take the common “ cuttle-fish,” Sepza officinalis,
the owner of the hard, calcareous shell often thrown up on the
shore, and known as “ cuttle-bone,” or ‘ sea-biscuit.”
Of the eight-footed cephalopods,—the Octopoda,—there are
two families; namely, the Octopid, and the Argonautide.
The first only is found on our coasts. The British members
of it are the common Octopus, O. vu/garis, and the Eledone,
£. cirrosa, a genus chiefly distinguished from the octopus by
its having only one row of suckers, instead of two, along its arms
or feet. The Argonautidz, which inhabit warmer seas than ours,
and approach no nearer to us than the Mediterranean and Adriatic,
are represented by Argonauta argo, the ‘‘ Paper Nautilus,”—so
called from the peculiar texture of its shell, and the similarity of its
shape to that of the true Nautilus, 4. ompzlius, from which, how-
ever, it differs greatly in organisation.
All of these four “families” have two plume-like gills,;—one on
each side—and are therefore placed by Professor Owen in the
“order,” Dibranchiata. To this order belong also the extinct
Belemnites, and the still living Spirula, only one entire specimen
of which has ever been obtained, and that was in New Zealand,
though its beautiful internal shells are sometimes thrown up on
the shores of Devon and Cornwall.
The Tetrabranchiata, or four-gilled cephalopods, are represented
by a single living genus—the Pearly Nautilus, V. pompilius,—but
in Silurian times by 34 genera, and more than 1400 species.*
* See an interesting article on the fossil and recent cephalopoda, by Henry
Woodward, F.R.S., in the Student, Nos. xix. and xxii.
THE OCTOPUS AND ITS RELATIVES. 3
The following diagram will hélp to explain the relationship of
the Octopus to the rest of the cephalopoda.
MOLLUSCA.
Lae RES i STi
Classes. .. Cephalopoda. Gasteropoda. Pteropoda. Brachiopoda. Lamellibranchiata.
: E a
Orders. .. Dibranchiata, Tetrabranchiata.
. erst “7° - “«
Sections. .. Decapoda. Octopoda. Nautilidz. Orthoceratidze, Ammonitide.
Se : SEPP,
Families.. Teuthidz. Belemnitidz. Sepiide. Spirulidz. Octopidz. Argonautide.
+ aoe we +... ~
Genera, .. The Squids: The Cuttles ; The Octopus; The Paper Nautilus :
Loligo, &c.. Sepia, &c. O. vulgaris, &e. Argonauta.
It will be seen that it may be said to be first cousin to the
Argonaut, or “ Paper Nautilus,” and second cousin to the cuttle
and squid.
The Argonaut branch of the family is in possession of all the
house property, which seems to have been entailed on the female
line ; for the paper-nautilus is, in fact, a female octopod pro-
vided with a shell in which to carry and protect her eggs.
Instead of the whole of the eight arms tapering to a point, as in
the octopus, two of the dorsal limbs are flattened out at their
extremity, and from their membranes she secretes, and, ifnecessary,
repairs the shell, and, by applying them closely to its outer
surface on each side, holds herself within it ; for it is not fastened
to her body by any attaching muscles.*
* In the Appendix to Sir Edward Belcher’s ** Voyage of the Samarang,”
Mr. Arthur Adams, the Assistant Surgeon attached to the Expedition, gives
some valuable information concerning the Argonaut, numerous specimens of
which he had opportunities of capturing in the South Atlantic, and observing.
He says :—‘‘ There is not the slightest vestige of any muscular attachment.
This remarkable cephalopod carries about her eggs in a light calcareous nest,
which she firmly retains possession of by means of the broad, expanded, delicate
membranes of the posterior pair of tentacles. When disturbed or captured,
however, she loosens her hold, and, leaving her cradle to its fate, swims away
independent of her shell.” He adds that “ having once left her shell she has
not the ability, nor, perhaps, the sagacity, to re-enter her nest and resume the
guardianship of her eggs.”” From observations of the breeding habits of other
octopods I doubt this.
4 THE OCTOPUS.
The male argonaut is very smfall,—not more than an inch in
length,—and has no shell. Hence, even by eminent naturalists,
as Dumeril and De Blainville, it was long regarded as doubtful
whether the shell was really secreted by the female, or whether,
like the hermit-crab, she borrowed for her protection the empty
habitation of some other mollusc.
It is an old belief, sanctioned by Aristotle, that the broad mem-
branous expansions of the twoarms, are hoisted by the animal as
sails; and that in calm weather it sits in its boat-like shell, and
floats over the smooth surface of the sea, steering and paddling
with its other arms; and that, when danger threatens, it lowers its
masts, and sinks beneath the waves.
Oppian, in his “ Halieutics,” poetically expresses his opinion that
it served as a model for the man who first conceived the idea of
constructing a ship, and embarking on the waters :—
‘* If humble guess may probably divine,
And trace th’ improvement to the first design,
Some wight of prying search, who wond’ring stood
When softer gales had smoothed the dimpled flood,
Observed these careless swimmers floating move,
And how each blast the easy sailor drove ;
Hence took the hint, hence formed th’ imperfect draught,
And ship-like fish the future seaman taught.
Then mortals tried the shelving hull to slope,
To raise the mast, and twist the stronger rope,
To fix the yards, let fly the crowded sails,
Sweep through the curling waves, and court auspicious gales.”
This pretty fable was exploded in 1837 by Captain Sander
Rang, an officer of the French navy, and Port-captain at Algiers,
who carefully followed up some experiments communicated to him
by Mrs. Power, a French lady then residing at Messina ; and the
structure and purpose of the two flattened limbs is now clearly
understood.*
Instead of floating in its pleasure-boat over the sea, the
* Charlesworth’s Magazine of Natural History, Sept. 1837; p. 393.
THE OCTOPOCS*AND ITS RELATIVES. 5
argonaut ordinarily crawls along the bottom, carrying its shell
above it, keel uppermost ; and the broad extremities of the two
arms are not hoisted as sails, nor allowed, when at rest, to dangle
over the side of the “boat,” but are used as a kind of hood by
which the animal retains the shell in its proper position, as a man
bearing a load on his shoulders holds it with his hands. When it
Fig. 1. The Paper Nautilus (A7gonauta argo).
The membrane is shewn partially retracted and the shell exposed.
comes to the surface, or progresses by swimming instead of
walking, it does so in the same manner as the octopus ; namely,
by the forcible expulsion of water from its funnel-like tube.*
This “ paper-sailor,” then, whom the poets have regarded as
endowed with so much grace and beauty, and living in luxurious
ease, is but a fine lady octopus after all. Turn her out of her
handsome residence, and, instead of the fairy skimmer of the seas,
you have before you what Mr. Mantalini would call a “ dem’d
damp, moist, unpleasant body,” like that of her weird and
sprawling relative. The Paper Nautilus has been regarded as the
analogue of the snail, which, like it, secretes an external shell for
the protection of its soft body; and the octopus as that of the
garden slug, which, having organs like those of the snail, as the
octopus has organs like those of the shell-bearing argonaut, has
no shell. The Cuttles and Squids may be compared to some of
the sea-slugs, as Aplysia and Bullea, and to some land-slugs, as
Parmacella and Limax, which have an internal shell.t
* See page 27. + H. Woodward ; op. cit.
6 | THE OCTOPUS.
The female octopus not being furnished with a shell, none of
her arms are modified in form, like those of the argonaut, for the
purpose of secreting and holding one. The male octopus, also
unlike the male argonaut, is as large as the female, but may easily
be distinguished from her by his having numerous tubercles and
papille on the skin, which become very prominent when he is
irritated or excited. D’Orbigny, not recognizing this peculiarity
as sexual, regarded it as a specific distinction, and made of the
male octopus a separate species, O. tuberculatus.
Having briefly explained the generic history and relationship of
the octopus, I propose to introduce to the reader some members
of the family with whom I have been on friendly terms. A former
casual acquaintance with some of their kinsfolk at the sea-side,
ripened, afterwards, into a close and prolonged intimacy with
them in their home; and I thus obtained an insight of their
habits and peculiarities, many of which are very curious and
interesting.
CHAPTER -II.
OCTOPODS I HAVE KNOWN.
THE first Octopus whose habits and mode of life I had oppor-
tunities of observing in captivity, was one exhibited in the
Aquarium at Boulogne in September 1867. It was the prominent
subject of conversation at the sabes @héte of all the hotels there,
and almost the first words addressed to a new-comer were, ‘‘ Have
you seen the devil-fish?” It was but a miserable little imp, only
half matured in diableric, and so persistently concealed itself by
burrowing in a considerable depth of shingle, that all that could
generally be seen of it was a portion of one of its arms waving
gently in the water. But perhaps this was quite as well as if more
had been visible, for it left a great deal to the imagination, and
was also profitable to the proprietor, because people repeated
their visits daily in hope of obtaining a better view of it. The
privilege of privately inspecting it was several times accorded to
me, and I then first witnessed many of the movements, ways,
and habits of this animal, with which I have since become
familiar.
The first octopus received at the Brighton Aquarium was caught
in a lobster-pot at Eastbourne in October 1872, and great was the
joy that reigned in “ London-by-the-sea.” For in the state of
public feeling then existing, an aquarium without an octopus was
likea plum-pudding without plums. Share-holders might construct
a handsome building, and stock its magnificently gigantic tanks
with a variety of most interesting fishes, but fashion and public
8 THE OCTOPUS.
opinion demanded of them a “ devil-fish,” and if they were unable
to exhibit one, all other attractions were disregarded. The new
octopus became “the rage.” Visitors jostled each other, and
waited their turn to obtain a peep at him—often a tantalizing
exercise of patience, for the picturesque rock-work in the tanks
provided so many hiding places, that, until these were partially
filled with cement, the popular favourite only occasionally con-
descended to show himself. Poor fellow! his career was short,
and his end sudden and shocking. During the interregnum
between the death of my friend John Keast Lord, and the
appointment of a successor to him in the curatorship, it became
necessary to clean out a tank in which were some “ Nurse-hounds,”
or “Larger spotted dog-fishes,” Scy//ium stellare. No hostility
between them and the octopus being anticipated by their attend-
ant, they were temporarily placed with it, and, for a while, they
seemed to dwell together as peaceably as the “ happy family” of
animals that used to be exhibited in a travelling cage at the foot
of Waterloo Bridge ; the octopus usually remaining within the
“‘ Cottage-by-the-sea ” which he had built for himself in the form
of a grotto of living oysters, and the dog-fish apparently taking no
notice of him. But one fatal day—the 7th of January, 1873—the
“ devil-fish ” was missing, and it was seen that one of the “ com-
panions of his solitude” was inordinately distended. A thrill of
horror ran through the corridors. There was suspicion of crime
and dire disaster. The corpulent nurse-hound was taken into
custody, lynched and disembowelled, and his guilt made manivest.
For there, within his capacious stomach, unmutilated and entire,
lay the poor octopus who had delighted thousands during the
Christmas holidays. It had been swallowed whole, and very
recently, but life was extinct.*
It is interesting to look back to the beginning of things, to trace
* **The dear devoured one,” as a local journal called it, was at once
immersed in methylated spirits. The dog-fish was stuffed. Both are still
preserved at the Aquarium.
OCTOPODS I HAVE KNOWA. 9
the progress of our knowledge of them, and to note the develop-
ment of our ideas concerning them, and the change of sentiment
with which they are regarded. I saw lately a dead octopus,
which had acquired “a very ancient and fish-like smell,” kicked
about by boys in the carriage-way of a Brighton street without
attracting attention ; but, so strongly was public interest excited
by “the dog-fish and octopus case,” that the press teemed with
paragraphs on the “ tragic fate of an octopus,” and even in the
London daily papers appeared brilliantly written and kindly
sympathetic leaders on the subject. The concluding paragraph of
one was as follows :—‘‘ Thus was an end put to a most distinguished
and useful life. Octopuses doubtless die every day, but seldom
has there been an octopus who will be so much missed as the
octopus at Brighton.” This was prophetic. For nearly two
months the loss was not repaired. Golden tench from Aldermas-
ton, trout from Byron’s Newstead, red mullet and other rarities,
could not suffice to fill the void. At length, on the 1st of March,
a fine specimen was received from Mevagissey, Cornwall. Then
Brighton was herself again, and the officials of the Aquarium jubi-
lant. As the spring advanced, facilities for procuring these animals
increased. Specimens weresent from the French coast, and others—
a dozen at a time—from the Channel Islands, until it appeared not
impossible that the octopus would become so abundant, that the
very dog-fishes would be satiated with them, like the appren-
tices with salmon,* and parodying the school-boys’ grace
** Mutton hot, mutton cold,
Mutton new, mutton old,
Mutton tender, mutton tough,
Of mutton we have had enough—”’
would refuse to eat one oftener than once a week.
* The story of apprentices stipulating with their masters that they should
not be required to eat salmon on more than a specified number of days in a
week--a familiar illustration of satiety producing not only indifference but
fo) LHE OCTOPTS.
Since then, the Brighton Aquarium has only once been with-
out an octopus; and although the popular chief of curiosities in a
marine vivarium has doubtless passed the zenith of his greatness,
he still holds an honoured place amongst the “ past masters ” of the
tanks.
After the publication in the ‘“ Times,” “Land and Water” and
other papers, of my notes of observations of the habits of the
octopus in confinement, I was favoured with several private letters
on the subject ; some of them from strangers giving me interest-
ing information concerning it, derived from their own experience,
and others requesting me to decide between adverse opinions
based respectively on the florid conceptions of the novelist,
and the scarcely less romantic, though truthful, description of the
naturalist.
Articles and paragraphs on the same topic, also, not infrequently
appeared about that time, in daily and weekly papers; of one of
which the following is a portion :—“ It is much to be hoped that
as time .and observation serve, Mr. Lee will give to the public a
paper devoted to a close scientific examination of Victor Hugo’s
description of the devil-fish, so as to settle to the minutest points
wherein it is true to nature, and wherein the novelist has deviated
from the severity of fact.” I confess the thought never before
occurred to me to dissect the author’s description of the frightful
animal he depicts, because I have always regarded it as an accu-
mulation of intentionally fanciful and ingenious exaggerations,
which, with great melodramatic power, he succeeded in combining
into an embodiment of mysterious horror. But I accepted the
suggestion, and have incorporated in a comparative analysis of
M. Hugo’s stirring romance, a description of the organization of
disgust—is probably, like many other illustrations, over-drawn, and not wholly
correct in its representation. For if, as-has been suggested, the salmon the
youths objected to were often kelts, salted or fresh, their protest is hardly to be
wondered at. No trace of such a stipulation has, however, been found in any
old indentures.
OCTOPODS I HAVE KNOWN. II
the octopus or fieuvre, and of those of its habits to which he
alludes. Other circumstances of its life-history, which did not
come within the scope of his work, are treated of in separate
chapters. Before critically reviewing his narration of the incidents
referred to, it may be desirable to give a brief summary of the
plot of the story of which they form a part, and which made the
octopus famous.
CHA BYE. id Lh
“THE TOILERS OF THE SEA.”
THE scene of “Les Travailleurs de la Mer” is Guernsey, and
the two characters brought most prominently forward are Gilliatt
and Clubin. Gilliatt was a man not much liked. He avoided
company, neither drank, smoked, chewed, nor snuffed ; and lived
in a house which, if not then haunted, was suspected of having
formerly been so. None, however, could deny that he was a
thorough seaman, a successful fisherman, a skilful pilot, and an
expert swimmer; and subsequent events proved him to possess
dauntless courage, pertinacious determination, a soft heart, and
chivalrous spirit. Clubin was in every moral quality exactly the
reverse. He had the reputation of being a man of severe probity,
strictly religious, and of unsurpassable integrity; and thus was
appointed master of a little steamer named the “ Durande,” which
traded between Guernsey and St. Malo, and belonged to a
Monsieur Lathierry. But although Clubin had gained the good
opinion of his neighbours by his cunning and adroitness, he was
a consummate hypocrite, and an unscrupulous scoundrel. A
former partner of Lathierry, named Rantaine, had robbed their
joint cash-box ten years previously of a hundred thousand francs,
fifty thousand of which, of course, belonged to Lathierry. Nothing
had been seen or heard of him since he absconded, until one day
Clubin caught sight of him in St. Malo, watched him enter the
shop of a money-changer, and receive three bank-notes of 1ooo/.
each (75,000 francs), and, at once surmising that they were the
proceeds of the embezzlement, determined to possess them. He
prepared his plans carefully, obtained with some difficulty a
*
OTHE DPOILERS OF THE SEA” 13
revolver (then a novelty in fire-arms), ascertained that Rantaine
intended to escape from France in a vessel, the captain of which
had agreed to send a boat ashore for him; and just as he was
about to embark, after killing a coastguardsman to prevent his
giving an alarm, presented the revolver at his head, and demanded
‘“‘restitution,” as he called it, of the plunder. An altercation
ensued ; but the formidable weapon gave its owner superiority,
and Rantaine was made to toss to his opponent from a distance
the three bank-notes, enclosed in an iron tobacco-box, and was
then allowed to depart. Clubin had already decided on the
measures he would adopt to enable him to enjoy his ill-obtained
wealth in a foreign country, without exciting a suspicion of his
evil deed. The “ Durande” was to leave St. Malo the next day,
on her return trip to Guernsey with passengers and cargo.
Weather-wise mariners predicted a fog, and urged Clubin not to
leave port; but he resolutely disregarded their advice, and put to
sea, placed a bottle of brandy in the secret hiding-place used by
his tippling steersman, who fell into the trap and got drunk; and
when the expected fog came on, the austere and puritanical
captain sent him forward with a reprimand, and, to the admiration
and satisfaction of the passengers, took the helm himself, and
went on at full steam for his destination. There were some on
board who thought he was running a great risk in not slackening
speed; and one passenger, a Guernsey man, felt sure that they
were not in their right course, and told the captain that more
than once, when the fog had lifted a little, he had recognised the
land a-head asa point called the “ Hanois.” But Clubin kept
straight on ; for this was just the spot where he had deliberately
determined to run the vessel ashore. In a few minutes she
struck. The boat was got over the side and launched, passengers
and crew took their places in her, and then all waited for the
captain. But the devoted man refused to leave his vessel. He
would do his duty to the last, and sink with her; and so, finding
persuasion useless, they were obliged to put off without him;
A | THE OCTOPUS.
some weeping for sorrow, and all regarding him as an hero, and
the most honest man that ever sailed the seas. Here, then, was
Clubin, alone in the very position he desired, with 75,000 francs
in his pocket, and having succeeded, whilst perpetrating all his
villany, in gaining, instead of losing, the esteem of his fellow-men.
He would give the over-crowded boat time to get away—to be
lost, perhaps, with all on board. The short mile to the shore
would be nothing for a swimmer like him to traverse; he would
soon gain the land, conceal himself for a time, and then quit the
neighbourhood ; whilst he would be supposed to be dead, and would
leave an honoured name behind him. He waited, and exulted
over his success. Suddenly, through a rift in the fog, a huge
object attracted his horrified gaze. He had been deceived in his
position. Instead of having run the “‘ Durande” on the Hanois,
before him was the formidable “Rocher Douvres”—the “ Man-
Rock.” Hideous and instant is the change in his condition—
five leagues of sea, instead of one mile, between him and the
main! ‘To swim that distance is impossible; he can never reach
the land. Death from cold and hunger stare him in the face.
His 75,000 francs will not here purchase him a crust of bread.
His only hope now lies in his being seen by some passing ship,
and eagerly he looks to seaward. A sail appears—approaches—
the vessel is a cutter. But those on board will never see him
where he stands. If he can but reach the rock he will no doubt
be perceived. There is not a minute to lose; he will try; two
hundred strokes will do it, and he will be saved. He throws
off all his clothes, buckles around his naked body the leather
belt in which is the tobacco-box containing the notes, and
plunges into the sea. He touches the bottom, grazes for a
moment the side of a submerged rock, then makes an effort to
rise to the surface. At this instant he feels himself seized by
the foot.
In this horrible situation the author leaves him for a time, and
follows the course of events on the island which the miserable
“THE TOLLERS, OF (THE SEA,” 15
wretch was destined never to reach. The boat was seen by a
small coaster, and its occupants taken on board, and conveyed
to St. Peter Port. The rescued crew and passengers of the
“ Durande ” quickly spread the tidings of the disaster, which fell
with crushing effect on her owner, Lathierry; the whole blame
was laid on Tangrouille, the drunken steersman, who was im-
prisoned, and the magnanimity of Clubin was everywhere extolled.
The master of a cutter, which arrived a few hours after the
landing of the saved people, reported that, hearing the bellowing
of the oxen which were a portion of the little steamer’s freight,
and the fog having dispersed, he had borne down to the wreck
and approached near enough to be certain that there was no one
on board; and consequently an opinion was expressed that the
heroic captain had been taken off by some sloop or lugger
belonging to Granville or St. Malo, and his return was hourly
expected. The steamer had broken her back, said the cutter’s
master, but the engine appeared not to be damaged. It was
suggested that it might be possible to preserve it; but the seaman
shook his head, and gravely replied that ‘“ The man did not exist
who could go there and remove it.” Renewed hope roused
Lathierry from his stupor, and he exclaimed, with a solemn oath,
that he would give his daughter, Deruchette, in marriage to the
man who would perform the feat. Gilliatt had long secretly
loved the girl, and he determined if possible to achieve the task,
and thus to win her. He quietly stole away from the crowd, and
the same night, alone and unaided, got under weigh his fishing
craft, which he had won as a prize for seamanship in a regatta,
and proceeded to the wreck. After much toil and endurance of
hardship for more than two months, he succeeded _in extricating
the engine and getting it on board his boat: His work completed,
he had only to wait for the tide to return in triumph with his
prize. But he was faint with hunger. He had long since
exhausted the stock of provisions he had brought with him, and
had subsisted on the molluscs and crustaceans he had been able
16 Lal OCTOPUS.
to find on the rocks; and, now, it became necessary to search
for one more meal before his departure. Profiting by the low
tide, and taking his knife between his teeth, he descended, by the
help of hands and feet, the steep escarpment into a pool. The
water came up to his shoulders. During his search for lobsters,
crayfish, and crabs, he espied a cavern, the arched portal of
which was partly uncovered. He entered. A fine crab, fnght-
ened at his approach, escaped into a horizontal fissure in the
rock. He thrust his hand into the crevice, and suddenly felt
himself seized. Something slender, rough, adhesive, chilling, and
living, was twisting itself in the gloom around his naked arm. It
proved to be one of the limbs of a pzewvre (octopus), or “devil-fish,”
and he had a terrible fight with the creature. It will be con-
venient to consider in detail the particulars of the combat after
finishing our epitome of the narrative of which it fills the most
remarkable chapters. Gilliatt, after a desperate struggle, stc-
ceeded in cutting himself free, and in killing the animal with his
knife; and then, panting with his exertions, turned to leave the
place where he had encountered so dangerous a foe. As he did
so, something which startled him caught his eye. He fancied he
saw at the back of the cavern a face which laughed at him. He
approached, and stooping down, found it was a human skull, with
the rest of the skeleton. It was surrounded by a multitude of
crabs, but they were dead and their shells empty. It was the larder
of the “devil-fish”; the monster had eaten the crabs; the crabs
had eaten the man. There were no articles of clothing to be seen ;
but, scraping away the crab-shells beneath which the skeleton
was half buried, Gillatt perceived around the vertebral column a
leather belt, which had evidently been buckled about the body of
the man before his death. The leather was wet, the buckle rusty ;
so Gilliatt cut the girdle with his knife. It contained an old iron
tobacco-box, which he forced open, and found in it ‘Aree bank-notes
of £1000 each (75,000 francs), and twenty guineas in gold. He
examined the belt more closely; and there, traced in indelible
¢ Tih TOIRER SOF THE, SEA." 17
lithographic ink, were the words, “ Szewr Clubin.” The skull, the
bones, and the belt were all that remained of the robber and
hypocrite: the ‘‘devil-fish” had held him under water and drowned
him ; the crabs had eaten him.
Gilliatt started on his return passage to Guernsey in joyful
certainty that he had earned the fulfilment of his wishes. Deru-
chette would be his wife. He had saved the engine of her father’s
vessel, and, more than that, had recovered the old man’s stolen
fortune. True to his natural shrinking from observation, he timed
his voyage so that he arrived in port after dark, moored his sloop
with her cargo of machinery to the old ring in the harbour wall
to which the “ Durande’s” cable used to be made fast, and then,
without announcing his return to anyone, retired to a nook over-
hung with brambles and ivy, where he had often watched for
hours—himself unseen, and his love unsuspected—the house
where dwelt the mistress of his heart, and the garden in which she
often walked. Near him, at the side of one of the paths, was a
rustic seat. As he gazed fixedly on the windows of her chamber,
and thought rapturously of his future happiness, Deruchette her-
self left the house and came towards him. She sat down on the
bench, in his full view, and with pensive, meditative air, remained
motionless, as if in a dream. The thought of speaking to her
never entered his head. He saw her, was near her—that was
enough for him for the moment. A sound of approaching foot-
steps roused her from her reverie, and him from his ecstasy. It
was the young rector, the Rev. Ebenezer Caudray, who had
sought her to make her an offer of marriage before leaving for
England on the following morning. Unhappy Gilliatt was a wii-
ness of his pleadings, her yielding, their betrothal and embrace.
Meanwhile Lathierry had seen from his window the funnel of
the “ Durande” standing at the old moorings ; and, scarcely believ-
ing his eyes, rushed to the harbour bell, and rang it long and
violently. Amongst those who appeared was Gilliatt, who, accom-
panying him to his home, laid before him the bank-notes and
c
18 IME “OCTOPCS.
Clubin’s belt. The old man, wild with joy, confirmed his offer of
his daughter’s hand to the man who had _ so nobly won his grati-
tude. But Gilliatt, to his astonishment, refused her: he knew
that her affections were pledged to another, and determined in his
own mind that she should marry the man of her choice. The
next morning he met the lovers, and, with feverish haste, insisted
on the immediate performance of the marriage ceremony ; dragged
them to the church, where, by an artifice, he substituted his rival
for himself as bridegroom, and then hurried them on board the
packet-boat which was just setting sail. His work accomplished,
the desperate man locked up his house, and strode along the
shore to a point of land close to which the vessel bearing Ebenezer
and Deruchette must pass. At its extremity was a kind of “ lovers’
seat,” called the “Chaise Gild-Holm’-Ur,” covered by the sea at
every tide, and near to which he had once rescued the young
curé from drowning. There he sat, watching the craft, on the
deck of which he could see the newly-wedded pair. It advanced
nearer; the tide rose to his ankles :—it came opposite to him ;
the water reached his waist :—it passed: he watched and watched,
and the tide rose and rose, until, as the vessel was lost to view,
his head disappeared beneath the waves.
CHAPTER, IV.
THE DEVIL-FISH OF FICTION AND OF FACT.
BEARING in mind that the famous story of ‘‘The Toilers
of the Sea” should be regarded as a romance and not as
a scientific treatise, I will now endeavour to compare the
“devil-fish” of the author with the octopus of nature, and to
indicate the points on which M. Hugo’s representation of his
‘‘monster” is either substantially correct, partly true, or entirely —
unreal.
His description of the seizure of Gilliatt by the pzeuvre shows
that he was tolerably well acquainted with its habits, mode of
attack, and external form. ‘The half terrifying, half disgusting
grasp of one of the animal’s sucker-furnished arms, “supple as
the issuing of a second
”
leather, tough as steel, cold as might ;
from the crevice, “like a tongue from out a mouth,” and the suc-
cessive application of a third, fourth, and fifth, to various parts of
his body, whilst the other three retained firm hold of the rock, is
powerfully, and, so far, correctly, depicted, if highly-coloured. And,
although, when the octopus desires to alter the position of the
suckers and to change its hold, it generally effects that by an in-
stantaneous relaxation and renewal of the suction, by protrusion or
retraction of the muscular piston within each, yet the gliding of the
cupping discs over the surface of a man’s wet skin is also in ac-
cordance with possibility, for I have tested it with a living octopus
on my ownarm. This will be easily understood by anyone who
has watched the movements of the entomostracous parasites of .
fishes. The so-called river-louse, Arvgulus foliaceus, which infests all
freshwater fishes, can run over their scales without loosening the
Ce
20 LTTE OCTOPGS.
hold of the two great suckers with which it is furnished ; and others
which, like Caligus and Lepeotheirus, have a water-tight carapace
with a flexible margin, are able to move rapidly over the body of
the fish in the same way.
In his relation of the manner in which the octopus captures its
prey, the novelist is therefore substantially in accord with nature.
The points on which he chiefly errs, are—
1st. The structure, use, capability, and effect on its victim, of its
arms and suckers.
2nd. Its general organisation.
3rd. Its mode of progression when swimming.
4th. The manner in which it devours and digests its food.
The arms are described as “ encircling Gilliatt’s whole body,
cutting into his ribs like cord; . . forming a ligature about his
stomach ; . . enfolding and constricting his diaphragm like straps;
producing such compression that he could hardly breathe; . . his
body almost disappearing under the folds of this horrible bandage;
its knots garotting him, its contact paralysing him.” The suckers
are represented as being ‘like so many lips trying to drink your
blood; . . they bury themselves to the depth of an inch in the
flésh of their prisoner; . . on contact with them your muscles
swell, the fibres are wrenched, and your blood gushes forth, and
mixes horribly with the lymph of the mollusc.”
The whole of this is fallacious. ‘The arms of the octopus are
not used as weapons of constriction, compression, or suffocation.
They are eight radiating, supple, tapering thongs, in ordinary speci-
mens from eighteen inches to two feet long, on each of which are
mounted, in a double row, numerous sucking discs, which decrease
in size towards the tips of the limbs, and act as so many dry cup-
ping-glasses. There are normally about 240 of these suckers on
each arm, making a total of about 1,920. I have counted more
in some individuals. M. Hugo gives their number as “fifty on
each arm, 400 in all ;” so on this point he very much understates
his case.
THE DEVIL-FISH OF FICTION AND OF FACT, 21
’ The cups themselves, by their internal mechanism for air ex-
haustion, and consequent pressure of the outer atmosphere, adhere
firmly to any substance to which they are applied, whether stone,
fish, crustacean, or flesh of man; but in the octopus they have no
power to puncture or lacerate the skin, or to cause blood to flow.
They are merely pneumatically prehensile organs, by which the
animal’s prey is caught and held; not by “ harpooning,” as the
novelist supposes, but by their atmospheric adhesion to the surface
of its body. In this genus the sucking discs
are composed of a muscular membrane, the
circumference of which is thick and fleshy,
and in some species cartilaginous, but in all
unarmed, and only adapted to secure close,
air-tight contact with any object it may touch.
When experimenting on the holding force of Fig. a eee jae
an octopus I have allowed it to fix its suckers cee )
firmly on my arm and the back of my hand,
and by pretending to try to pull them away
from its grasp have caused it to exert its utmost power of resistance
and retention. ‘The only effect of this has been that the vacuum
produced an almost indistinguishable circular mark, corresponding
with the edge of the larger discs, and not nearly so distinct as
would be caused by the application of a glass tube to the skin,
and the partial exhaustion of the air in it by drawing it from the
other end by the mouth and tongue. In some of the Cephalo-
pods the outer circle of the cups is a horny ring, sharply serrated
or dentated around its edge ; and in others—for instance, Onycho-
teuthis—the centre of each cup is provided with a sharp, strong
hook, capable of being extended or sheathed, like the claws of a
cat, which is plunged deeply into the flesh of slippery prey for the
better security of its hold ; but the cuttle-fishes thus furnished are,
unlike the octopus, habitually swimmers, instead of rock-crawlers.
The sessile arms of the octopods are considerably longer than
those of the decapods, or ten-armed cuttle-fishes ; but the latter
ty
iS)
LHE OCTOPTS.
have, in addition to the eight corresponding limbs, two long ten-
tacular arms, which, in some genera, are marvellous in the perfec-
tion of their compound apparatus for securing and holding a
struggling captive. This arrangement is well suited to their habits
and mode of life. Animals purely swimmers, and which hunt and
overtake their prey by speed, would be impeded by having to drag
after them a bundle of lengthy appendages trailing heavily astern.
But a long reach of arm is an advantage, instead of a hind-
rance, to the octopus ; for, although it can swim on occasion, its
ordinary habit is, either to rest suspended to the side of a rock,
to which it clings with the suckers of several of its arms, in the
position shewn in the frontispiece, or to remain lurking in some
favourite cranny ; its body thrust for protection and concealment
well back in the interior of the recess ; its bright eyes keenly on
the watch ; three or four of its limbs firmly attached to the walls
of its hiding place—the others gently waving, gliding, and feeling
about in the water, as if to maintain its vigilance, and keep itself
always on the alert, and in readiness to pounce on any unfortunate
wayfarer that may pass near its den. To small fish, crustacean or
mollusc, the slightest contact with even one of those lithe arms is
fatal. Instantaneously as pull of trigger brings down a bird, or
touch of electric wire explodes a torpedo or a mining fuse, the
pistons of the series of suckers are simultaneously drawn inward,
the air is removed from the pneumatic holders, and a vacuum
created in each ; the victim strives to escape ; a further retraction
of the central part of the disc makes all secure ; and, as arm after
arm, containing a perfect mitrailleuse of inverted air-guns, takes
horrid hold, battery after battery of them is brought to bear, and
the pressure of the air is so great that nothing can effect the re-
laxation of their retentive power but the destruction of the air
pump that works them, or the closing of the throttle-valve by which
they are connected with it.*
* See page 44.
THE DEVIL-FISH OF FICTION AND OF FACT. 23
Desiring to have a better view than I had previously been able to
obtain of that which follows the seizure of a crab by an octopus, I
fastened one to a string, by which an attendant was to lower it in
the water close to the glass, whilst I stood watching in front. The
crab had hardly descended to the depth of two feet before an octo-
pus for which it was not intended, and which I had not observed (so
exactly had he assumed the hue of the surface to which he clung),
shot out like a rocket from one side of the tank, opened his mem-
branous umbrella, shut up the suspended crab within it, and darted
back again to the ledge of rock on which he had been lying in
ambush. There he held on, with the crab firmly pressed between
his body and the stone work. As this was not what I wished, I
directed my assistant to gently try to pull the bait away from him.
As soon as he felt the strain, he took a firm grasp of the rock with
all the suckers of seven of his arms, and, stretching the eighth
aloft, coiled it round the tautened line, the suckers actually closing
on the line also, as a caterpillar’s foot gripes a thin twig, or a
cobbler’s leather pad folds round his thread when he is making a
wax-end. It then became a game of “pull devil, pull baker,”
and the “ devil-fish ” won it. Noticing several jerks on the string,
I thought at first they were given by the man overhead, and told
him not to use too much force ; but he called out, “ It’s not me,
sir, it’s the octopus: I can’t move him; and he’s pulling so hard
that, if I don’t let go, he’ll break the line.” ‘“‘ Hold on, then, and
let him break it,” I replied. Tug! tug! dragged the tough, strong
arm of the octopus; and at the third tug the line broke, and the
crab was all his own. ‘The twine was that used for mending the
seine net, and was therefore not particularly weak.
Although this experiment furnished a fresh illustration of the
holding power of an octopus, it had not taught me exactly that
which I wanted to know. I wished to be underneath that
umbrella with the crab, or (which was decidedly preferable) to be
able to see what happened beneath it without getting wet. My
plan, therefore, was to procure the seizure of the crab against the
24 THE KOCTOPES,
front glass, instead of against the rockwork. Our next endeavour
was successful. A second crab was so fastened that the string
could be withdrawn if desired, and was lowered near to a great
male octopus, who generally dwelt in a nook in the west front
corner of the tank. He was sleepy, and not very hungry, and
required a great deal of tempting to rouse him to activity; but
the sight of his favourite food overcame his laziness, and, after
some demonstrative panting, puffing, and erection of his tubercles,
he lunged out an arm to seize the precious morsel. It was with-
drawn from his reach ; and so, at last, he turned out of bed,
rushed at it, and got it under him against the plate-glass, just as I
desired. Ina second the crab was completely pinioned. Nota
movement, not a struggle was visible or possible: each leg, each
claw, was grasped all over by suckers—enfolded in them—stretched
out to its full extent by them. The back of the carapace was
covered all over with the tenacious vacuum-discs, brought together
by the adaptable contraction of the limb, and ranged in close
order, shoulder to shoulder, touching each other ; whilst, between
those which dragged the abdominal plates towards the mouth, the
black tip of the hard, horny beak was seen for a single instant
protruding from the circular orifice in the centre of the radiation
of the arms, and, the next, had crunched through the shell, and
was buried deep in the flesh of the victim.
The action of an octopus when seizing its prey for its necessary
food is very like that of a cat pouncing on a mouse, and holding
it down beneath its paws. The movement is as sudden, the scuffle
as brief, and the escape of the prisoner even less probable. The
fate of the crab is not, really, more terrible than that of the mouse,
or of a minnow swallowed by a perch; but there is a repulsive-
ness about the form, colour, and attitudes of its captor which
invests it with a kind of tragic horror.
In the next chapter the author writes :—
‘To believe in the existence of the Azewvre one must have seen it. Compared
to it the ancient hydras were insignificant. Orpheus, Homer, and Hesiod
we PE VI FiSH. OF £ICTION AND OF FACT. 25
imagined only the chimzera :—Providence created the devil-fish. If terror was
the object of its creation, it is perfection.
‘*The ‘ pieuvre’ has zo muscular organisation, no menacing cry, no breast-
plate, no horn, no dart, no tail with which to hold or bruise, no cutting fins,
or wings with claws, no prickles, no sword, no electric discharge, no venom,
no talons, xo beak, no teeth, .... It has no bones, 70 blood, no flesh. It is
soft and flabby. J¢ 7s ax empty flask ; a skin with nothing inside it. Its eight
tentacles may be turned inside out, like the fingers of a glove. It has a single
orifice, which is both vent and mouth. The same opening performs both functions.”
So says the novelist. The naturalist knows that it has a com-
plete and perfect muscular organisation ; muscles which serve to
retract and depress the funnel, bundles of strong muscles passing
along the arms and branching to each of the suckers, within
which other fascicu/¢ of muscular fibres converge from the circum-
ference to the centre, and by their contraction produce the vacuum
which gives to the animal its power of adhesion,—muscles all over
its body, and a mass of muscles of such strength to work the
powerful beak, that if anyone, believing the
fictionist, were to place his finger in the small
circular orifice in the centre of the base of
the arms, he would possibly learn practically
that it is not ‘“‘an empty flask with nothing in
it.” A sharp nip might perhaps teach him
that it has not only muscles, but a mouth and
head also. For just within the oral cavity
lie, retracted and hidden, but ready for use
when wanted, a pair of horny mandibles
which bite vertically, like the beak of a parrot
Z
Za
or turtle, except that the lower mandible is Fig. 3. Mandibles of
Octopus.
the longest and overlaps the upper, and are (0. vulgaris).
so hard that they can not only tear the softer
animals the octopus is able to catch, but also
break up the shells of lobsters, crabs, and mussels, which are
its usual food. The head contains a brain, from which arises
the system of nerves; and the animal has a sense of smell,
26 LAE OCLTOPGS.
and organs of hearing and taste, besides those which are ap-
parent on its exterior, namely, of sight and touch. Instead
of having “no blood,” it is furnished with a complete circu-
latory apparatus consisting of one systemic and two branchial
hearts, arteries which distribute the blood through all parts of the
body, and a system of veins or canals by which it returns towards
the gills, of which breathing organs the animal has two—one on
each side. By the alternate expansion and contraction of the
bladder-hke mantle-sac—an action resembling that of a pair of
bellows—the water is pumped into contact with these gills, which
convey to the blood the oxygen contained in it; and when its
life-giving, purifying gas has been extracted from it, it is expelled
by the muscular, valved funnel, or syphon tube, which has also
another function, to be
presently described. Far
from being ‘a skin with
nothing inside it,” from
the beak and mouth (within
which is a tongue like a
rasp, having recurved spines
or teeth) is continued the ali-
\< WAN Al mentary canal, cesophagus,
. Tongue of the Octopus (O. vulgaris). crop, gizzard, stomach, and
Magnified x2 diameters. wae ;
intestines; and within this
so-called “empty pouch”
are also the liver, and the organs of reproduction and respiration.
The “tentacles,” or arms, cannot be “ turned inside out like the
fingers of a glove.” On making a section across one of them, it
will be seen that it is composed of close muscles, the fibres of
some of which run longitudinally, and others transversely. The
arm, therefore, is more like the strong flexible lash of a stout
hunting whip than the finger of a glove, and is solid, except that
it has a perforation along the centre of its axis for the lodgment of
its nerve and artery.
foe PEVILFSH OF FICTION AND OF FACT. 27
The author accurately describes the action and movement of
the octopus, and its utilisation of its eight arms when crawling at
the bottom, or on ledges of rocks. The globose body is then
turned upward, the mouth downward, and the arms sprawl along,
and by grappling some fresh object drag the body after them.
But he is mistaken concerning its mode of progression when
swimming. After stating that in swimming, it, so to speak,
sheaths and draws close together its arms, which is quite true, he
continues :—
‘¢ Figure to yourself a sleeve sewn up with a fist in it. This fist, wich 7s the
head, pushes through the water, and advances with an undulating movement.”
That which M. Hugo supposes te be the head is the body of
the animal, He appears’ to have received this impression from
Pliny,* who writes :—“‘ The head, which is directed obliquely
when they swim, is, in the living animal, hard and distended like
a balloon.” The cuttle-fishes, and the octopus amongst them,
propel themselves rapidly backward, when swimming, by the
forcible expulsion from the funnel, in sudden and frequent jets, of
the water drawn in at the branchial, or gill openings. ‘Thus the
organs of respiration become those of locomotion as well, and the
funnel has also another function, being the orifice from which the
excreta are expelled. It has been asserted by various writers—
and the statement has been repeated by many able naturalists—
that the octopus swims by vigorous flappings of the expanded
membrane which extends from the sheath of the mouth along the
arms, and connects the bases of the latter like the web of a duck’s
foot. It is true that this sometimes, though very rarely, takes
place, but its proper and usual mode of progression is with the
body in advance, the arms closely packed together, and directed
backward horizontally in its wake, whilst the jets of water,
pumped out at frequent intervals from the funnel, propel it at
a considerable speed. I have had opportunities of watching the
* ‘* Naturalis Historia,” lib. ix., cap. 29.
28 Tie “OCTORCS.
habits of at least a hundred individuals of this species, yet have
only three or four times seen them progress, when swimming, by
powerful contraction of the web-like membrane, and then but for
Fig. 5. The Octopus swimming.
a very short distance. Still less frequently does the octopus
reverse its usual course ; but I have twice seen one swim with its
arms extended in advance of it, by bending the syphon tube
beneath its body so as to present the orifice in a direction exactly
contrary to its normal position.
M. Hugo forcibly refers to the remarkable property of rapidly
changing its colour possessed by this animal. He writes :—-
‘¢ Its under surface is yellowish ; its upper, earthy. Its dusty hue can neither
be imitated nor explained : it might be called a ‘a beast made of ashes, which
inhabits the water.’ Irritated, it becomes violet. It is a spider in form, a
chameleon in coloration.”
When quiescent, the general tone of colour of the octopus is a
mottled brown, but it assimilates itself as much as possible to the
rock to which for the time it may be holding. The moment it
THE DEVILFISH OF FICTION AND OF FACT. 29
commences to swim it assumes a deeper hue, which usually
becomes a dark, dingy red, but sometimes tends to purple. Mr.
Darwin, in his delightful ‘ Journal of Researches made during the
Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle,” mentions his having noticed its
endeavour to escape detection by the use of this chameleon-like
power of changing colour so quickly as to cause it to vary with
the nature of the ground over which it passes. This is effected
in the same manner as the similar mutation of colour in the
chameleon. Through the thin and transparent outer skin are
visible cells in the inner layer beneath it, which contain pigment-
matter of yellow, blue, red, and brown. By the contraction and
expansion of the cells, prominence is given to one or another of
these colours, at the will of the owner ; and not only do the spots
appear, and fade, and alternate in position, but, like human beings,
the octopus turns pale when exhausted, and flushes red under the
influence of anger or excitement. A curious play of colour, which
I have elsewhere compared with the flashing and dying out of
sparks in tinder, often takes place on the skin of the cephalopods
by the continued action of the pigment cells, long after the death
of the animal. The ancients were well acquainted with this
colour-changing habit of the octopus. Aristotle mentions it, and
Oppian describes it as follows :—
** All fishers know the changing prekes’ deceit,
How, clung to rocks, when coming dangers threat
New forms they take, and wear a borrowed dress,
Mock the true stone, and colours well express.
As the rock looks they take a different stain,
Dapple with grey, or branch the livid vein.
Thus they, concealed, the dreaded danger shun
By borrowed shapes obscured, and lost in seeming stone.”
It was also frequently referred to by other writers. Athenzeus
quotes Theognis of Megara as saying in his Elegies :—
** Remark the tricks of that most wary polypus,
Who always seems of the same colour and hue
As is the rock on which he lies ;”
30 THE OCTOPUS.
and Ion the tragedian, who wrote in his “ Phoenix ” :—
‘* T hate the colour-changing polypus
Clinging with bloodless feelers to the rocks.”
It was also the subject of a maxim equivalent to our “ When
yowre at Rome, do as Rome does.” A proverb cited by Clearchus
runs thus :—
‘* My son, my excellent Amphilocus,
Copy the shrewd device o’ the polypus
And make yourself as like as possible
To those whose land you chance to visit.”
M. Hugo poetically alludes to the phosphorescent glow said to
be emitted by the octopus in the dark :—
‘‘By night, and especially in the rutting season, it is phosphorescent.
Awaiting its spouse, it beautifies, kindles, illuminates itself; and, from the
height of some rock, it may be perceived in the profound darkness beneath,
blossoming in wan irradiation—a spectre sun.”
I have never been fortunate enough to witness the exhibition
of this phosphorescence by the living octopus, although in dead
specimens, as is the case with other marine animals, it becomes
apparent as soon as decomposition has commenced ; but D’Or-
bigny mentions it, and Mr. Darwin says, “I observed that one
which I kept in the cabin was slightly phosphorescent in the
dark.” * No doubt concerning this can, therefore, exist; for a
more competent observer, or more accurate recorder of facts
than Mr. Darwin, never put pen to paper.
In his description of the manner in which the devil-fish absorbs
its victim, the author of “The Toilers of the Sea” releases his
ardent imagination from the few restraining ties by which it was
bound to reality. He writes :—
‘¢ You enter into the beast, the hydra incorporates itself with the man: the
man is amalgamated with the hydra. You become one. The tiger can only
devour you ; the devil-fish inhales you. He draws you to him, into him ; and,
* Voyage of the Beagle ; p. 8.
GHEE DEVIL-IFISA, OF FICTION AND OF FACT. 34
bound and helpless, you feel yourself slowly emptied into this frightful sac,
which isa monster. To be eaten alive is more than terrible ; but to be drunk
alive is inexpressible.”
M. Hugo fortunately gives us the means of estimating the size
of the body of the octopus which attacked Gilhatt. He tells us
that its arms were “nearly a metre (thirty-nine inches) long.”
None of quite so great dimensions have, I believe, been found in
the English Channel, but it is not impossible that such exist.
Granting this, the body of such an octopus would not be very
much larger than a soda-water bottle or a Florence-flask, such as
olive-oil is sold in: and so the “horrible bag, which is a monster,”
and into which you are to be inhaled and drawn alive, is but a
small affair after all. The plain truth is, that the octopus and
other cephalopods obtain and eat their food very much like the
rapacious birds. They are the falcons of the sea. Some of them,
like Onychoteuthis, strike their prey with talons and suckers also ;
others, like the octopus, lay hold of it with suckers alone; but
they all tear the flesh with their beaks, and swallow and digest
their food in as unromantic a fashion as does hawk or vulture.
But it is when the author indulges in what he is pleased to call
“ philosophical meditation” on such animals that he arrives at the
highest point of hyperbolical mystery. He tells us :—
** They are the chosen forms of evil. What are we to do in presence of these
blasphemies of creation against itself? .... The possible is a formidable
matrix. Mystery concretes itself in monsters. Portions of shades come forth
from this block, the perpetual ; tear themselves, divide themselves, roll, float,
condense, borrow from the ambient blackness, undergo unknown polarizations,
assume life, compose for themselves who can tell what forms with obscurity,
what souls with miasma; and issue from them larve, athwart the course of
vitality. They are as the darkness converted into beasts. Of what use, for
what purpose, are such creatures ?—relapse of the eternal question! These
animals are phantoms as much as monsters. They are the amphibiz of death,
the visible extremities of black circles. They mark the transition of our reality
to another.”
To analyse this is beyond my powers. One can only wonder
what it all means. The language is sententious, and would, no
32 THE OCTOPUS.
doubt, be impressive if it were not incomprehensible. It reminds
one of Mr. Maccabe’s “ Welsh sermon,” which, delivered with
solemn earnestness, rolls forth in grandly sonorous tones, but has
not a word of Welsh or sense in it; or of the “ nonsense-problem ”
which Mark Twain says was propounded to him by Artemus
Ward, and which seemed so full of thought and so clearly put that
he blamed his “wooden head” because he got into a hopeless
tangle over it, until he found he had been entrapped into ponder-
ing over “a string of plausibly worded sentences that did not
mean anything under the sun.”
Let us now take evidence concerning the dimensions to which
the octopus is known to attain, and the degree in which it may be
regarded as dangerous to man.
An octopus from our own coasts having arms two feet in
length may be considered a rather large specimen; and Dr.
J. E. Gray, who was always most kindly ready to place at the
disposal of any sincere inquirer the vast store of knowledge laid
up in his wonderful memory, told me that “there is not one in
the British museum which exceeds this size, or which would
not go into a quart pot, body, arms and all.” The largest British
specimen I have hitherto seen had arms 2 ft. 6 in. long.
If, however, the octopus seldom or never arrives at a length of
arm of three feet on the northern coasts of France, we have suff-
cient evidence that it exceeds it on her southern borders, and
along the Spanish and Italian shores of the Mediterranean.
M. Verany, of Nice, an able naturalist, mentions having seen
an octopus which weighed 33 lbs. and measured three métres
from tip to tip of its outstretched arms. . This would make the
length of each arm about four-and-a-half feet. A fisherman
who noticed it affixed to the mole of the port of Nice had the
hardihood to grasp it with his hands, and made himself master
of it, though not without much difficulty.
Mr. Sylvanus Hanley, the well-known conchologist, and joint
author with Professor Edward Forbes of their standard work
THE DEVIL-FISH. OF FICTION AND OF FACT. 33
on the British Mollusca, who passes every winter in Italy, has
personally informed me that there are living in the harbour of
Leghorn several octopods having arms at least four feet long,
and as thick at their base as a man’s wrist. ‘They lie with their
bodies squeezed into, and hidden in, crevices in the stonework of
the mole and sea-wall, two or three of their arms extended and
waving about in the water in readiness to seize passing prey, and
the others holding fast to the blocks of stone. Mr. Hanley says
that his son, who is a practised shore-hunter, and no coward,
having frequent occasion, whilst in search of shells, to climb along
a ledge of the rough masonry near the surface of the water, just
beneath which was the lurking-place of one of these great crea-
tures, was for some time afraid to pass the spot, in consequence
of the animal’s formidable appearance ; for, as he approached, it
would thrust one or two of its disc-studded arms out of water, and
stretch them towards him in a threatening manner, in its endea-
vours to reach him. ‘The Italian divers and bathers are said to
fear these creatures.
My deceased friend John Keast Lord gives in his book, ‘‘ The
Naturalist in British Columbia,” some particulars of the dimen-
sions attained by the octopus in North-Western America. He
writes :—‘‘ The octopus, as seen on our own coasts (of England),
although even here called a ‘ man-sucker’ by the fishermen, is a
mere Tom Thumb—a tiny dwarf—as compared with the Brobding-
nagian proportions he attains in the sunny bays and long inland
canals of Vancouver’s Island, as well as on the mainland. ‘These
places afford lurking-dens, strongholds, and natural sea-nurseries,
where the octopus grows to an enormous size, fattens, and wages
war with insatiable ferocity on all and everything it can catch.
The size, of course, varies. I have seen and measured the arm
five feet long, and as large at the base, where it joins the central
disc, as my wrist.” He adds that the Indians, when spearing them
for food, take care to keep them at a distance till they have
stabbed them to death ; knowing that if an octopus were once to
D
34 THE OCTOPUS.
get some of its huge arms over the side of the canoe, it could as
easily haul it over as a child could upset a basket. But we know
that a canoe is very crank, and easily upset.
I have often been asked whether an octopus of the ordinary
size can really be dangerous to bathers. Decidedly “ Yes,” in
certain situations. ‘The octopus would not seize a man for the
purpose of devouring him; nor do I believe that the act
would be prompted by a deliberate intention to drown him, that
his dead body might become an attractive bait for crabs, which
are the animal’s favourite food; but rather by an instinctive desire
to lay hold on anything moving within reach. The holding power
of its numerous suckers js enormous. It is almost impossible
forcibly to detach it from its adhesion to a rock or the flat bottom
of a tank; and if a large one happened to fix one or more of its
strong, tough arms on the leg of a swimmer whilst the others held
firmly to a rock, I doubt if the man could disengage himself under
water by mere strength, before being exhausted. Fortunately, it
can be made to relax its hold by grasping it tightly round the
“throat” (if I may so call it), and it may be well that this should
be known. "
That men are occasionally drowned by these creatures is, un-
fortunately, a fact too well attested. In August, 1867, the Gexoa
Gazette mentioned that a carter of Sampierdarena, who had gone
to bathe near the reef of San Andria, was seized by an octopus,
which, in spite of all his efforts, dragged him under water and
drowned him. Not one of the bathers who witnessed the occur-
rence dared to go to the assistance of the unfortunate man.
Admiral Baillie Hamilton has kindly furnished me with some
information on the subject. He tells me that in his time, many
years ago, it was an understood thing that there existed amongst
the rocks, of Gibraltar Bay an octopus of large size; and that
during the last half-century one soldier at least of the garrison has
been drowned whilst bathing there by being grasped under water
by one of these “ devil-fishes.”
THE DEVIL-FISH OF FICTION AND OF FACT. 35
Major Newsome, R.E., has also been so kind as to send
me the following description of an incident which happened to
himself.
“In the years 1856-7,” he writes, “I was stationed at East
London, a landing place about goo miles from the Cape, up the
east coast of Africa ;—I speak from memory, having no map at
hand. It is a rock-bound coast with the exception of the river’s
mouth, which consists of a small space of sand. The landing is
most dangerous, and, conducted in surf boats, hatched over, is
only then practicable in very calm weather. ‘The ordinary prac-
tice amongst the officers, both for comfort and saving of labour,
is to bathe on the sea shore. Such was my custom each morning.
There was one quadrangular cavity in the rocks which, at low
water and in calm weather, formed a very desirable bath ; but in
rough weather, or at any time of tide except near about low water,
it was unapproachable. At the best of times it was generally in a
boil, and I have known a strong swimmer washed clean out of it
on to the adjoining rocks, cut most grievously about the body by
barnacles. Nevertheless, we mostly took a dip there when prac-
ticable, on account of the freshness of the water. At other times
the plunge took place-in.smooth pools left in the rocks by the
receding tide, which, though not quite so fresh, yet formed a very
acceptable bath. One morning I took a header into one of these
pools, which was, perhaps, 20 feet long, 7 to 8 feet wide, and
deep in the centre—8 or g feet. As I swam from one end to the
other, I was horrified at feeling something around my ancle, and
made for the side as speedily as I could. I thought at first it
was only sea-weed ; but as I landed, and trod with my foot on the
rock, my disgust was heightened at feeling a fleshy and slippery
substance under me. I was, I confess, alarmed, and so, appa-
rently, was the beast on whom I trod, and whom, I suspect, I
thereby discomfited, as he quickly detached himself and made
again for the water. Some fellow-bathers, whom I hailed, came
to my assistance, and with a boat-hook, on to which the brute
D2
36 LAE OCTOPGS.
clung, he was, eventually, safely landed. When extended he would
have filled a hoop of five feet diameter. The grasp of an ordinary
sized octopus holding to a rock would, I suppose, in lat. 30°, be
not less than 30 lb. to 40 lb. The floating power of a man is
between 5 lb. and 6 lb., and it takes a very strong swimmer to
convey an ordinary fowling-piece, which weighs only 7 Ib., across
a river, dry. Had I not kept mid-channel, I believe it would have
been a life-and-death struggle between myself and the beast on
my ancle. In the open water I was the best man ; but near the
bottom or sides, which I could not have reached with my arms,
but which he could have reached with his, he would, certainly,
have drowned me.”
Major Newsome has not over-estimated the holding-power of
an octopus. One in the Brighton Aquarium was seen dragging
towards it a huge stone, from 4o lb. to 50 Ib. in weight. It
is not uncommon for one to haul up to a ledge of rock, four
or five feet from the bottom, two or three heavy oysters simul-
taneously ; and it unfortunately happened in the early days of
the Institution, and before precautions were taken to avert such
accidents, that an octopus drew up, by night, the waste-valve of
his tank, and let all the water run out of it ; thus, by his strength,
like Samson at Gaza, bringing death upon himself and all his
companions,
CHAPTER: V:
THE OCTOPUS OUT OF WATER.
Untit by the establishment of aquaria opportunities were
furnished of observing the habits of the octopus in captivity, very
little was known as to the truth or otherwise of the statement
that it would sometimes voluntarily leave the water, and ramble
on land in search of food. Professor Edward Forbes* says that,
in the sudden falls, lasting not very long, of the sea-level, which
occur from various causes in the bays of the countries in and
around the A.gean, this creature may be met with walking on the
exposed shore ; but he thinks it doubtful whether it ever wanders
of its own choice above the usual water-mark.
Aristotle affirms that it comes out of the sea and walks in stony
places; and Pliny tells of an enormous polypus (octopus) which
at Carteia, in Grenada—an old and important Roman colony, near
Gibraltar—used to come out of the sea at night, and carry off or
devour salted tunnies from the curing depdts on the shore ; and
adds that the head of it, when it was at last killed, was found to
weigh 7oolb. £lian records a similar incident, and describes his
monster as crushing in its arms the barrels of salt fish to get at
the contents. These old writers seem to have aimed rather at
making their histories sensational than at carefully investigating
the credibility or the contrary of the highly-coloured reports
brought to them. ‘They were, of course, gross exaggerations ; but
there is a substratum of truth in them ; and in the preceedings of
an octopus in the Brighton Aquarium we may recognise the living
* ‘© Travels in Lycia.”
38 THE OCTOPUS.
model of the bold, broad sketches from nature from which the old
artists fancifully drew their showy but untruthful pictures.
In May, 1873, it was found that some young lump-fish (Cycop-
terus lumpus, were mysteriously disappearing from one of the
tanks. Almost daily there was a fresh and inexplicable vacancy
in the gradually diminishing family circle, and morning after
morning a handbill might have been issued :—‘‘ Missing! Lost,
stolen, or strayed, a young ‘lump-sucker,’ rather below the middle ,
size, and enormously stout ; had on a bright blue coat, with several
rows of buttons on it, and a waistcoat of lighter colour. Whoever
will give such information as shall lead to the discovery of the
same, or produce satisfactory evidence of his death, will relieve
the troubled minds of the curators!” ‘ What on earth can have
become of them?” “Where can they be?” were the questions
each attendant asked in vain of another. If they had died they
would have been found in the tank, for there were no crabs there
that could have eaten them ; they could not have burrowed in the
shingle, for it was not deep enough ; and, with their obesity of
form, they could no more have leaped out of the tank than Mr.
Wardell’s fat boy in “ Pickwick” could have jumped a five-
barred gate. Here wasa puzzle! One by one they were lost to
sight, as regularly and unaccountably as pair after pair of Lieu-
tenant Charles Seaforth’s breeches disappeared from his bedroom
at Tappington, as related in the “ Ingoldsby Legends.”
One morning, however, Mr. Lawler, one of the staff, on going
to count our young friends, found an interloper amongst them.
“Who put this octopus in No. 27 tank?” he inquired of the
keepers. ‘‘ Octopus, sir? no one! Well, if he ain’t bin and got
over out of the next tank!” And this was just the fact.
The marauding rascal had occasionally issued from the water in
his tank, and clambered up the rocks, and over the wall into the
next one ; there he had helped himself to a young lump-fish, and,
having devoured it, returned demurely to his own quarters by
the same route, with well-filled stomach and contented mind.
THE OCTOPOCS OUT OF WATER. 39
This was not very difficult for him to accomplish, for the partition
between the two tanks is only about a foot above the surface of
the water. Having accidentally, or otherwise, discovered that
there was a preserve of live stock suitable to his palate next door,
he paid frequent nocturnal poaching visits to it, and, after clearing
up every remnant of his meal, regularly slunk home before day-
light ; until, like most criminals, becoming careless by frequently
escaping detection, he, on the last occasion, indulged at supper-
time in an inordinate gorge, and slept under his neighbour’s porch,
instead of going home to bed. ,
His return homeward at daybreak was caused by no intelligent
fear of his keeper, but by a perfectly natural instinct inherited
from his ancestors, namely, that of retiring during the day to his
own favourite den or lurking-place, as an ogre is supposed to
ensconce himself in his castle or cavern after having satiated his
rapacious maw in a successful foray. For it must be remembered
that the octopus is nocturnal in its habits, and ordinarily hides
itself as much as possible during the day, shrinking from the light,
which is apparently disagreeable to it: its wanderings in search
of food, therefore, generally take place at night.*
* A few days after the publication in Zand and Water of my account of this
occurrence, the following lines appeared in /unx. They were written by its
editor, poor dear Tom Hood, who loved all animals—birds, beasts, and fishes
—and delighted in conversing with me‘about those under my care :—
LHE: STRAVING “TOPUS.
A LEGEND OF THE BRIGHTON AQUARIUM.
Have you heard of the Octopus—
’Topus of the feelers eight—
How he left his tank o’po’pus
Lump-fish to disintegrate ?
To the lump-fish tank, as sprightly
As the Brighton coach, he’d ride ;
For two passengers he nightly
Found convenient room inside.
40 )) RAE OC TOPECS.
Although I had once seen the octopus in question crawl out
of the water on to the rocks above the surface in the daytime,
and had often witnessed his activity during the dark hours, and
the surprising rapidity of his progress by crawling or walking, he
had not been seen to do all of which he was accused. Every
opportunity was, therefore, given to him of continuing his incur-
sions into his neighbours’ compartment, and it was hoped that he
would be caught in the act. So acute, however, are these
creatures in their perceptions, so quick of sight, and so sensitive
to the light of even a distant lantern, that our suspected pirate
would not start on a buccaneering expedition whilst anyone was
cruising in the building. Heseemed to know that he was watched ;
On his feelers, long and curly,
Homeward then he gently strode ;
And you'd have to get up early
To perceive him on the road.
But it happened Mr. Lawler,
Whom the lump-fish ought to thank,
Caught this very early caller,
‘¢ Dropt-in” on his neighbours’ tank !
For some weeks the world lump-fishious
Very strangely vanished had ;—
So the visit was suspicious,
And appearances were bad !
Well for him, this brigand larky
Was not brought before J.P.
(Neither clergy, nor squire-archy)
But to Mr. Henry Lee.
Said he, ‘* Punish on suspicion,
Is a thing I never will—
Catch him in the same position ;
Then I'll send him to the mill !”
Treadmill is a wear-and-tear case,
And Octopus would, you see,
Do four men upon a staircase—
Law, how tired the beast would be
LHE OCFOPUS, CUT OF WATER. Al
and for about a week remained quietly at home. During that
time no more young lump-suckers were missing. ‘Then he again
broke bounds, and, moreover, prevailed on one of his class-mates
to follow his bad example of going out on the loose.
One night these two individuals left their tank, and started in
opposite directions on a voyage of discovery. One went east,
the other went west ; and, as if by preconcerted plan, neither was
content merely to cross the frontier and visit his nearest neigh-
bours, but both passed through, or over, one intervening tank,
and settled down amongst the tribes beyond. One of them found
himself in a Brobdingnag of crabs—a colony of giants too strong
to be successfully invaded even by an armada of octopods. If he
had arrived at Lilliput instead—a tank inhabited by pigmy crus-
taceans—he would soon have depopulated it, by clutching in his
hateful embrace more victims fer aem than ever an unwelcome,
foul-mouthed dragon of old demanded as his daily dole of youths
and maidens, to satisfy his inconvenient preference for their flesh
as his daintiest dish. The other traveller found his way into
Lobsterdom, and putting on a bold front, proceeded to attack
the chief. The lobster, though evidently alarmed, ‘“ showed
fight,” and the intruder was obliged to retreat, and seek refuge in
a cranny of the rock-work. Although the lobster which bore the
brunt of the attack was a very large one, I was at the time sur-
prised that it so decisively vanquished the invader as to save
from destruction the other smaller specimens of its kind, which
were its companions. For it is an old notion, still generally
believed by fishermen, that if an octopus approaches a “pot,” or
“stalker,” in which are lobsters that have been entrapped, they
will cast off their claws, and become literally sick from fright.
In his pleasant book, ‘ Sub-tropical Rambles,” Mr. Nicholas
Pike, United States Consul at Mauritius, mentions that advan-
tage is there taken by the native fishermen of the antipathy and
instinctive fear with which the crustacea regard. their enemy, the
octopus (called by the Creoles, the “ ourite,” by the European
42 THE OCTOPUS.
residents, the ‘‘ cat-fish,”), to lure the former from their holes. A
long arm of the octopus is suspended at the entrance, and no
sooner does the lobster or cray-fish catch sight of the dreaded
weapon covered with suckers, than away he rushes in terror, and is
soon caught by a noose of split bamboo firmly fixed over his tail.
In localities where the octopus abounds, the crustacea probably
learn to regard it as an enemy to be dreaded, but this is certainly
not the case with those which I have had opportunities of ob-
serving. The common shore crabs on which this animal is
habitually fed in the Aquarium have no knowledge of their
danger in its presence. . When tossed into the tank they frequently
run towards the monster who is waiting to devour them, and even
scramble on to and over his back. It may be that, as in countries
previously unvisited by man the birds and beasts, unacquainted
with his destructive powers and carnivorous habits, show no fear
of him at first sight, so the crabs and lobsters at Brighton so
rarely see an octopus in their native haunts that they have not
learned to recognise their deadly foe.
Another amusing illustration of the pedestrian powers of the
octopus occurred some time afterwards at the Brighton Aquarium.
In anticipation of the arrival of some literary and scientific friends,
I had transferred an octopus from its tank to a large vase of water
in my private room, that they might be able to examine it minutely.
I left it for a quarter of an hour, and, on my return with them,
found it toppling and sprawling along on the carpet. It had got
out of the vase, tumbled off the table on to the floor, and reached
the further side of the room. Of course, it was immediately
replaced in the water, and seemed none the worse for its singular
promenade.
An incident described by Mr. Thomas Beale, surgeon of a
South Sea whaling ship, in his “ History of the Sperm Whale,”
has been quoted over and over again, not merely as proving that
the octopus can quit the water, but as an illustration of its
ferocity. It should rather be cited as an instance of unintentional
THE OGTOPUS. @UT OF WATER. 43
exaggeration by a generally fair observer. Mr. Beale says :—
“While upon the Bonin Islands, searching for shells, which had
just been left by the receding tide, I was much astonished at
seeing at my feet a most extraordinary animal crawling towards
the surf, which had only just left it. I had never seen one like it
under such circumstances before; it therefore appeared the more
remarkable. It was creeping on its eight legs, which, from their
soft and flexible nature, bent considerably under the weight of its
body, so that it was lifted by the efforts of its tentacula only a
small distance from the rocks. It appeared much alarmed at
seeing me, and made every effort to escape, while I was not much
in the humour to endeavour to capture so ugly a customer, whose
appearance excited a feeling of disgust, not unmixed with
fear. I, however, endeavoured to prevent its career, by pressing
on one of its legs with my foot, but although I made use of
considerable force for that purpose, its strength was so great that
it several times quickly liberated its member, in spite of all the
efforts I could employ in this way on wet, slippery rocks. I now
laid hold of one of the tentacles with my hand, and held it firmly,
so that the limb appeared as if it would be torn asunder by our
united strength. I soon gave it a powerful jerk, wishing to dis-
engage it from the rocks to which it clung so forcibly by its
suckers, which it effectually resisted; but the moment after, the
apparently enraged animal lifted its head with its large eyes pro-
jecting from the middle of its body, and letting go its hold on
the rocks, sprang upon my arm, which I had previously bared to
the shoulder, and clung with its suckers to it with great power,
endeavouring to get its beak, which I could now see between the
roots of its arms, in a position to bite. A sensation of horror
pervaded my whole frame when I found this monstrous animal
had affixed itself so firmly upon my arm. Its cold, slimy grasp
was extremely sickening, and I immediately called aloud to the
captain who was also searching for shells at some distance, to
come and release me from my disgusting assailant. He quickly
4A THE OCTOPUS.
arrived, and taking me down to the boat, during which I was
employed in keeping the beak away from my hand, quickly
released me by destroying my tormentor with the boat-knife,
when I disengaged it by portions at a time. This animal must
have measured across its expanded arms about four feet, while its
body was not larger than a large clenched hand. It was that
kind of sepia called by whalers ‘ rock-squid.’ ”
It was neither a “‘sepia” nor a “squid,” but an octopus of very
moderate size. The enraged animal “ting its head and springing
on Mr. Beale’s arm is very sensational, but very inaccurate; and
it is simply impossible that he could have seen the beak w/7/st
the animal was endeavouring to get it into posttion to bite him.
The tragic killing of his “tormentor” with the boat-knife, and
disengagement of its arms, bit by bit, was quite unnecessary. If
he had grasped it firmly round the neck it would have instantly
let go its hold. Aristotle was well aware of this, and it may be
well for bathers to remember it.
I have frequently ailowed an octopus to fix itself upon, and
crawl over, my bare arm. It can always be detached in this
manner. None have ever attempted to bite me. But although it
is “ nothing when you are used to it,” it is not pleasant to have a
stranger, of whose proclivities you know nothing, fasten himself
upon you with such demonstration of attachment. To have the
long, cold, damp arms of an octopus writhing and twining about
one’s wrist and hand, and fastening its hundreds of sucking
cups all over them, gives a singularly uncomfortable sensation—
the kind of feeling most persons would experience on grasping a
handful of lively snakes—so Mr. Beale may be -excused for
allowing his terror to excite his imagination and overcome his
judgment.
The fishermen of the Mediterranean have a summary method of
killing the octopus or cuttle. They turn back the arms over the
head, and seizing the latter with their teeth compress it in the
region of the brain. Death is instantaneous.
THE VOCTOPUS. OUT OF WATER. 45
M. Moquin Tandon, in his “ World of the Sea,” alluding to
the peril to swimmers of contact with the octopus, gives a singular
recipe for rendering the creature harmless. He says: “ Dr.
Franklin found that a few drops of vinegar on its back at once
persuaded it to release its hold.” So, too, would a red-hot poker,
no doubt ; and it would be almost as easy to apply the one as the
other under water: for, supposing that swimmers were in the
habit of carrying cruet bottles slung round their necks, con-
siderable ingenuity would be required to enable one to pour a
few drops of vinegar on the back of an octopus which was holding
him by the ancle at some distance below the surface. To put
vinegar on an octopus, as to put salt on a bird’s tail, you must
first catch it. I have somewhere read of a Dutch pedlar who sold
a man a liquid for the extermination of fleas. ‘And how do you
use it?” inquired his customer. “Ketch te flea, and drop von
little drop into his mout,” answered the pedlar. “Why!” ex-
claimed the purchaser, “I could kill it in half the time, by crush-
ing it.” “ Vell,” said the Dutchman, thoughtfully, “dat is a goot
vay, too.”
In August, 1873, I received from Dr. R. Brisco Owen, of
Haulfre, Beaumaris, a fellow of the Linnean Society since 1824,
the following communication respecting octopods quitting the
water, and their capability of rapid progress on land :—
“TJ forward you a description of a curious species of octopod
which I once met with in Torres Straits; but at the Brighton
Aquarium, last month, I was examining the octopus there, and
they struck me as being quite a different species to mine, their
eyes especially different ; the eyes of mine were full and open,
as beautiful as the eye of the owl, which they resembled. It was
in the month of September, 1843, that I landed in Blackwood’s
Bay, on my passage through Torres Straits from Sydney to
Madras. The ship on board of which I was a passenger was the
Stratheden, Captain Howlett. On casting anchor in the bay,
having cleared this most dangerous strait, which separates the
46 THE OCTOPUS
northernmost point of Australia from New Guinea, a small party,
including the captain, took boat and were rowed ashore, a distance
of a good mile. Our passage in the boat was over a splendid
field of coral, the water not being above a yard deep, and as clear
as crystal. Landing on the shore of Blackwood’s Bay, our party
separated for the purpose of exploration ; the captain pointing out
to us the necessity of our being punctual as to time, not wander-
ing too far, and observing the position of our boat for our return.
The shore was an extensive flat, hard and clean to walk on, with
much sea-weed growing on it. Having proceeded a considerable
distance, and lost sight of my companions, great was my surprise
to see an object start up suddenly, close to my feet, moving very
rapidly, and evidently wishing to avoid me, and to get to the sea.
After chasing it a short time, I was satisfied that the creature was
an octopus, which I was desirous of capturing alive, and without
injury. Its eyes, which were round, large, and wide open, de-
scriptive of the greatest terror, struck me forcibly. Its speedy flight
and wonderful powers of locomotion, I cannot account for: it
appeared to me surprising that a creature with such a flexible
structure as its tentacles, could outrun me. Our chase lasted so
long that both pursuer and pursued were frequently obliged to
halt from sheer exhaustion. At length, finding that I could not
capture the animal, I flung my stick at it with force, and knocked
it over, killing it with one blow, and, to my sorrow, ruining it as a
specimen. On picking up the octopus, it was quite collapsed.
The tentacles were about two feet long only. I am not surprised
to have found this creature left by the receding tide; as it had
plenty of seaweed, with little pools of water, to protect and shelter
it, and abundance of the sea-slug (olothuria edulis), which no
doubt it feeds on—fine specimens of which I met with, that would
have suited the dainty palate of an alderman! I trust that credit
may be given me for the veracity of this account. I have no
object in deception. I have here stated what occurred to me;
and being able to refer to my journal, my memory is freshened,
THE OCTOPUS OUT OF WATER. 47
though the circumstances made such an impression that I have
often thought the matter over, and sought in books for confirma-
tion of what I witnessed, but without success.”
A similar instance was related in a letter to one of the morning
papers (I think, the Dazly Telegraph), about eight months _pre-
viously ; and the statement then appeared to me to be an attempt
to hoax the public; for it seems impossible that an octopus can
travel over the ground at the pace described. But it is not to
be supposed that a gentleman of Dr. Owen’s age and profession
would volunteer information intentionally erroneous. Among the
details given by him is one which is difficult to understand. The
genus Octopus is especially characterised by the smallness of the
eye. This is larger in Phzloxenis and Argonauta ; but in all of the
family the iris is oblong, and not round. In the calamaries it is
larger, and always circular ; but the octopods alone of the cepha-
lopoda, are able, by the disposition of their arms, to walk, or pro-
gress, on dry land, or to return to the water if cast upon the shore.
Marvellous as the above narrative may appear to the reader’
(and I confess I so regard it), it has been collaterally confirmed
by an officer of high rank in the Royal Engineers, whose veracity
is unquestionable, and who, without previous knowledge of Dr.
Brisco Owen’s communication, related to me, first verbally, and
afterwards, at my request, in writing, a similar adventure which
happened to himself.
“When at Bermuda,” he said, “in 1868, whilst sitting on a
rock near the water, I saw a curious instance of the power of
locomotion of these beasts. A small octopus emerged from
the water, apparently in great terror: in two seconds he was
followed by a larger one, evidently in chase. The little fellow
might have been ten inches over all, the larger one about
eighteen, or perhaps twenty, inches. Their mode of progression
was most singular: in position something like the ‘arabs’ of the
London streets, but not turning. Five arms seemed to be used
in walking, or, rather, progressive motion; the remaining three
48 THE OCTOPUS.
being reserved for seizing. I should think the rate at which both
animals went was as fast as a man could possibly walk, ze,
between five and six miles an hour. A larger octopus would
undoubtedly cause a man following it to run, unless it chose to
turn and face him.”
Both of these accounts of the locomotive powers of the octopus
are perfectly clear and definite ; and, therefore, although we may
say, with Horatio,—“ This is wondrous strange!” we must either
entirely disbelieve two credible witnesses, or apply to the case
the aphorism of Hamlet :—‘“ There are more things in heaven
and earth than are dreamt of in our philosophy.”
CHAPTER VI.
NEW LIMBS FOR OLD ONES.
Ir is a not uncommon occurrence that when an octopus is
caught, it is found to have one or more of its arms shorter than
the rest, and showing marks of having been amputated, and of
the formation of a new growth from the old cicatrix. Several
such specimens have been brought to the Brighton Aquarium ;
one of which was particularly interesting. Two of its arms had
evidently been bitten off about four inches from the base; and out
from the end of each healed stump (which, in proportion to the
length of the limb, was as if a man’s arm had been amputated half-
way between the shoulder and elbow) grew a slender little piece of
newly-formed arm, about as large as a lady’s stiletto, or a small
button-hook—in fact, just the equivalent of worthy Captain Cuttle’s
iron hook, which did duty for his lost hand. It was not a specimen
of the remarkable /ectocoty/us development of the arm of the male
octopus which takes place during the breeding season, but an
illustrative example of the repair and restoration of a mutilated
limb.*
* Professor Steenstrup says that almost every octopus he has examined has
had one or two arms reproduced, and that he has seen females in which all the
eight arms had been lost, but were more or less restored ; also a male in which
the same was the case on seven of the arms,—the hectocotylized limb alone
being uninjured. He adds that whilst the Octopoda possess the power of repro-
ducing with great facility and rapidity their arms which are exposed to so many
enemies, the Decapoda—(the Sepiidze and Squids)—appear to be incapable of
thus repairing and replacing accidental injuries.—[See the translation of his
paper by Mr. W. S. Dallas, in the ‘Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Histy.” of
August, 1857; No, 116, 2nd series ; p. 107.]
E
50 THE OCTOFPES.
This reparative power is possessed by some other animals, of
which the starfishes and crustacea are the most familiar instances.
The lobster and the crab, if they find themselves in depressing
circumstances, are addicted to malingering. They do not go so
far as to commit suicide ; but, stopping short of that, perpetrate a
kind of demi-semi-self-immolation. In a sudden passion of fear or
anger, they will sometimes fling off one or both of their large
claws, and that which they thus do impulsively and in haste, they
repent and repair at leisure—like the intemperate man we some-
times read of in the police news, who goes home and smashes
the crockery, and, when he is able to reflect on his folly, is glad
to make good the damage as quickly and as quietly as he can.
The starfishes, too, as the common “ five-finger” ( Uraster), and
the brittle-star (Op/zocoma),—which by-the-by, is not half as brittle
as has been supposed—can throw off their limbs in a pet, and grow
them again. But in both of these the act is voluntary, and the
dismemberment complete. If the claw of a lobster or crab be
severed, or wounded in any part of its length, the animal will
bleed, and waste, and die of the consequent exhaustion. I have
noticed that, especially in the spiny lobster or sea cray-fish (Padi
nurus), the blood flows freely many hours after death, and that
when I have had occasion to remove the abdominal and caudal
leaf-like appendages of a dead crayfish for dissection and micro-
scopical examination, the blood and serum have poured from the
part where the cut has been made, and thickened on the stone
slab in a firm, gelatinous sheet, of the colour and consistency of
guava jelly.
The only joint from which new growth can start in the crustacea
is that connected with the body. ‘The whole limb must be got
rid of. The octopus, on the contrary, is incapable of voluntary
dismemberment, but has the faculty of reproducing, as an out-
growth from the old stump, any portion of an arm (or leg) which
may have been lost by misadventure. I say “arm or leg,” for one
hardly knows which these eight appendages should be called. If
NEW LIMBS FOR OLD ONES. GE
they are legs, the octopus can hold on with them as tightly as the
“old man of the sea” gripped Sinbad the Sailor, and use them
as dexterously as the “armless girl,” who cuts out with hers
the pretty paper designs which she sells to visitors. If they
are arms, he can walk on them, head downwards, under water,
more cleverly than the most agile monkey or street arab. So we
may call them either or both.
Returning to our mutilated octopus ;—we transfer him from the
tank in which he had been temporarily placed to the wet pave-
ment, that we may better observe his movements when crawling.
He scrambles and shuffles away, and makes the best use he can of
the jury-rigging he has fitted on to his old stumps. As he does
so, his keen eyes, mounted on little hillocks, peer furtively around
him ; and while he sidles off from his too admiring persecutors, he
casts a doubtful, half-frightened, half-defiant glance behind him,
like a schoolboy, timid in the dark, who fancies a ghost is fol-
lowing him. His cousin the cuttle-fish (S¢éza) has an eye, round
like that of an owl, which stares you out of countenance, and
puzzles you by its immobility ; the pupil of the eye of an octopus
is like that of a tiger turned half round. The perpendicularly-
elongated pupil of the cat gleams with hot ferocity: the calm,
cunning gaze of the octopus from out the narrow horizontal slit of
its compressed eyelids freezes by its cold cruelty.
Now, let us try to conjecture the “ fous e¢ origo mali”—the
source of the injury of the two lopped arms.
There lingers still amongst the fishermen of the Mediterranean
a very ancient belief that the octopus when pushed by hunger will
gnaw and devour portions of its arms. Aristotle knew of it, and
positively contradicted it; but a fallacy once planted is hard to
eradicate. You may cut it down, and apparently destroy it, root
and branch, but its seeds are scattered abroad, and spring up else-
where and in unexpected places. Accordingly we find Oppian,
more than five centuries later, disseminating the same old notion,
and comparing this habit of the animal with that of the bear
E 2
52 THE OCTOPUS.
obtaining nutriment from his paws by sucking them during his
hybernation.
When wintry skies o’er the black ocean frown,
And clouds hang low with ripen’d storms o’er-grown,
Close in the shelter of some vaulted cave
The soft-skinn’d prekes their porous bodies save.
But fore’d by want, while rougher seas they dread,
On their own feet, necessitous, are fed.
But when returning spring serenes the skies,
Nature the growing parts anew supplies.
Again on breezy sands the roamers creep,
Twine to the rocks, or paddle in the deep.
Doubtless the God whose will commands the seas,
Whom liquid worlds and wat’ry natives please,
Has taught the fish by tedious wants opprest
Life to preserve and be himself the feast.
The fact is, that the larger predatory fishes regard an octopus
as very acceptable food, and there is no better bait for many of
them than a portion of one of its arms. Some of the cetacea also
are very fond of them, and whalers have often reported that when
a “fish” (as they call it) is struck it disgorges the contents of its
stomach, amongst which they have noticed parts of the arms of
cuttle-fishes which, judging from the size of their limbs, must have
been very large specimens. The food of the sperm whale consists
largely of the gregarious squids, and the presence in spermaceti of
their undigested beaks is accepted as a test of its being genuine.
That old fish-reptile, the Ichthyosaurus, also, preyed upon them ;
and portions of the horny rings of their suckers were discovered
in its coprolites by Dean Buckland. Amongst the worst enemies
of the octopus in British home waters is the conger. They are
both rock-dwellers, and if the voracious fish come upon his cepha-
lopod neighbour unseen, he makes a meal of him, or, failing to
drag him from his hold, bites off as much of one or two of his
arms as he can conveniently obtain. ‘The conger, therefore, is
generally the author of the injury which the octopus has been
unfairly accused of inflicting on itself.
NEW LIMBS FOR OLD ONES. 53
The Curator of the Havre Aquarium describes an attack by
congers on an octopus which he had thrown into their tank. As
soon as the latter touched the bottom it examined every corner of
the stone-work. The moment it perceived a conger it seemed to
feel instinctively the danger which menaced it, and endeavoured
to conceal its presence by stretching itself along a rock, the colour
of which it immediately assumed. Finding this useless, and seeing
that it was discovered, it changed its tactics, and shot backward,
in quick retreat, leaving behind it a long black trail of turbid
water, formed by the discharge of its ink. ‘Then it fixed itself to
a rock, with all its arms surrounding and protecting its body, and
presenting on all exposed sides a surface furnished with suckers.
In this position it awaited the attack of its enemies. A conger
approached, searched with its snout for a vulnerable place, and,
having found one, seized with its teeth a mouthful of the living
flesh. Then, straightening itself out in the water, it turned round
and round with giddy rapidity, until the arm was, with a violent
wrench, torn away from the body of the victim. Each bite of a
conger cost the unfortunate creature a limb, and, at length,
nothing remained but its dismembered body, which was finally
devoured ;—some dog-fishes, attracted by the fray, partaking of
the feast.
I have always refused to permit so shocking a scene to be
repeated at the Brighton Aquarium. The Havre experiment has
taught us all that is to be learned from it concerning the mode of
attack of the conger, and the octopod’s strategy of defence. That
the flesh of the latter is a favourite food of congers, I have re-
peatedly proved by watching the eagerness with which they will
rend limb from limb, and devour the body of a dead octopus to
which I sometimes treat them after removing such portions as
may be required for dissection and preservation.
An octopus is sometimes, though rarely, severely injured in
battle by one of its own species. On one occasion when a newly-
arrived specimen was put in a tank with others which had dwelt
54 THE OCTOPUS.
there for some time, these old habitués made a fierce onslaught on
it, and the new-comer had one of its arms torn away. It would
certainly have been killed if one of the attendants had not rescued
and removed it. Aristotle says that the octopus does not eat its
congeners, and D’Orbigny endorses his opinion. Nevertheless one
instance of this cannibalism has occurred in the Brighton Aquarium ;
and in that on the Boulevard Montmartre, Paris, in 1867, two
octopuses fought and the victor devoured the vanquished.
Another reparation or renewal by the octopods of worn or in-
jured portions of their limbs is the frequent shedding of the outer
skins of their suckers, the epidermis of the flat surface of them,
by which they adhere, and travel from place to place. These
cast-off skins may generally be seen floating in the water in their
tanks in the form of very thin, filmy discs, with a hole in the
centre. Seeking a reason for this, it appears to me that these,
their feet-coverings, become worn by crawling and climbing over
the rough rocks, and that it is a provision of nature for the
renewal of the holding surface of their suckers, necessary for
the production of a sufficient vacuum, and the very best method
by which the repairs of the soles of their boots can be “neatly
executed.” And, as their feet increase in size with their general
growth, it may also be that they outgrow their shoes as quickly
as children do theirs, and that, therefore, they cast them perio-
dically when they require larger ones, as the barnacles do their
plumes, the crustacea their shells, and snakes their skins.
Sometimes the whole shoe is thrown off; at others only the
sole. When the octopus desires to get rid of this worn skin it
curls its arms together close to its body in a peculiar manner, and
rubs them one against another with a rapid motion of coiling and
uncoiling which suggests the action of ‘‘Sir Jacob,” the father of
Thomas Hood’s “ Miss Kilmansegg,” when he
‘* In the fulness of joy and hope,
Seemed washing his hands with invisible soap
In imperceptible water.”
NEW LIMBS FOR OLD ONES. 4 55
It appears to delight in thus cleaning itself and giving itself a
good rubbing and scrubbing all over, as a strong man enjoys his
“‘ matutinal tub” and a hearty rub with a rough towel afterwards ;
or as a bird, with evident pleasure, preens its feathers, and bathes
sn water or sand. This cleansing process has been erroneously
supposed to indicate sexual excitement.
CHAPTER NaiL
SPAWNING OF THE OCTOPUS.
THE first instance of the octopus spawning in an aquarium in
this country occurred at Brighton on the 19th of June, 1873. A
large female octopus, caught at Dieppe, was brought in on the
26th of the preceding April, and, immediately on her arrival, a
fine male previously received from Mevagissey conceived a liking
for her, and evidently rejoicing in the good fortune which had
provided for him a suitable mate, paid her such assiduous court,
that his addresses were quickly accepted. It was a case of “love
at first sight,” and in three days the captive damsel was wooed and
won. The event above mentioned was, therefore, not unexpected.
Our octopus, fortunately selected as a suitable site for her nest,
a recess in the rock-work, close to the front glass of the tank, so
that her movements could be easily observed. Her body just
filled the entrance to it, and she further strengthened its defences
by dragging to the mouth of her cavern two dozen or more of
living oysters, and piling them one on another to form a breast-
work or barricade, behind which she ensconced herself. Over
this rampart she peered with her great, sleepless, prominent eyes ;
her two foremost arms extended beyond it, their extremities coil-
ing and writhing in ceaseless motion, as if prepared to strike out
right and left at any intruder. She seemed never to be taken
unawares, and was no more to be caught napping than a cunning
middy “caulking it” in the middle watch. Couchant, and on
the “look-out,” lke Sir Edwin Landseer’s lions, she barred with
her body the passage to her den, ready to defend it against all
foes. Her companions evidently felt that it was dangerous to
SPAWNING: OF (THE OCZOPUS: 57
approach an excited mother guarding her offspring, and none
ventured to go within arm’s length of her. Even her forlorn
husband was made to keep his distance. If he dared to approach
with intent to whisper soft words of affection into his partner’s
ear, or to look with paternal pride on the newly-born infants, the
lady roused herself with menacing air, and slowly rose till her
head over-topped the barrier ; by an instantaneous expansion of
the pigment vesicles of the skin, a dark flush of anger tinged the
whole surface of the body; the two upper arms were uncoiled
and stretched out to their utmost length towards the interloper;
and the poor snubbed, hen-pecked father, finding his nose put out
of joint by the precious baby, which belonged as much to himself
as to its fussy mother, invariably shrank from their formidable
contact, and sorrowfully and sullenly retreated, to muse, perhaps,
on the brief duration of cephalopodal marital happiness. All
his fellows in the tank knew that he was in bad humour, and
took care to keep out of his way. As soon as they saw him
coming towards them they gathered their arms close together in
a straight line, and swam off rapidly, tail first, to the further side
of the tank.
The eggs of the octopus, when first laid, are small, oval, trans-
lucent granules, resembling little grains of rice, not quite an
eighth of an inch long. They grow along and around a common
stalk, to which every egg is separately attached, as grapes form
part of a bunch. Each of the elongated bunches is affixed by a
glutinous secretion to the surface of a rock or stone (never to
seaweed, as has been erroneously stated), and hangs pendent by
its stalk in a long white cluster, like a magnified catkin of the
filbert, or, to use Aristotle’s simile, like the fruit of the white alder.
The length and number of these bunches varies according to the
age and condition of the parent. Those produced by a young
octopus are seldom more than about three inches long, and
from twelve to twenty in number; but a full-grown female
will deposit from forty to fifty of such clusters, each about
58 THE ‘OCTOLGS.
five inches in length. I have counted the eggs of which these
clusters are composed, and find that there are about a thousand
in each: so that a large octopus produces in
one laying, usually extended over three days, a
progeny of from 40,000 to 50,000. Our brood-
ing French octopus, when undisturbed, would
pass one of her arms beneath the hanging
bunches of her eggs, and dilating the membrane
on each side of it into a boat-shaped hollow,
would gather and receive them in it as in a
trough or cradle, exhibiting in its general shape
and outline a remarkable similarity to those of
the argonaut, or ‘‘ paper-nautilus,” with the eggs
of which octopod its own are, as I have already
explained, almost identical in form and appear-
ance. ‘Then she would caress and gently rub
them, occasionally turning towards them the
mouth of her flexible exhalent and locomotor
tube, like the nozzle of a fireman’s hose-pipe, so
as to direct upon them a jet of the excurrent
water. Ibelieve that the object of the syringing
process is to free the eggs from parasitic ani-
i gee malcules, and possibly to prevent the growth of
a Co conferva, which I have found rapidly overspread
those removed from her attention. Week after
week, she continued to attend to them with the
most watchful and assiduous care, seldom leaving them for an
instant except to take food, which, without a brief abandonment
of her position, would be beyond her reach. Aristotle asserted
that while the female is incubating she takes no food. This is
incorrect.
In the tank with our specimen were seven others of her species,
and to supply them with food about five-and-twenty living shore
crabs (Carcinus manas) were daily tossed into it. Although she
SPAWNING OF THE OCTOPUS. 59
so seldom left her nest, she generally obtained her share of these,
and would seize with her suckers, and draw towards her, some-
times, three at a time, one by each of three of her arms. Their
shells were soon broken and torn apart by her powerful beak,
and when she had devoured the contents the hard débrzs was cast
out of her den.
But although the old naturalist of Stageira was mistaken in
supposing that the female octopus does not take food during the
period of the development of her ova, he was right in believing
that her anxiety for her progeny, and her unremitting care of them,
tell injuriously upon her health. A brooding octopus shows signs
of diminished bodily vigour, as a sitting hen bird loses flesh whilst
hatching her eggs. Her respiration at times becomes laboured.
When the water is inhaled (I use the word intentionally, for the
animal dreathes the oxygen contained in it) at the open part of the
mantle-sac, the siphon-tube, at its orifice, is often drawn forcibly
inward ; and when the pair of bellows of the body close, the same
opening of the tube is distended to its fullest capacity by the out-
rush of the exhaled water. Repeated observations have shown
that it not unfrequently happens that the vital powers of the
octopus are so exhausted by her protracted maternal cares that
she dies when relieved by the hatching of her eggs from the
necessity of further vigils. Many also die in the act of spawning,
or when distended with ova.
To return to our mother octopus at Brighton,—at the end of
the fifth week from the deposit of her ova she began to exhibit
considerable irritation and restlessness, in consequence of the
annoyance she experienced from visitors trying to rouse her to
movement, or to frighten her from her eggs, by knocking at the
glass with coins or sticks, and flouting pocket-handkerchiefs in
front of her. I found that on some of these occasions, in her
excitement, whilst protecting her eggs from the supposed danger,
she had torn away the lower portion of some of the clusters,
and that their number was considerably diminished. It therefore
60 LHE VOCTOPES:
became necessary to screen her from the public gaze. Fearing
also that, notwithstanding the cessation of the interruption to
which she had been subjected, she might by her over-fussiness
destroy the remainder; or that even if her progeny were safely
born, they might hatch out unperceived, and thus our hopes be
frustrated and an important observation lost, I decided on remoy-
ing some of them from the exhibition tank, and placing them in a
smaller one in the laboratory, where they could be closely
watched. The water was therefore run off till a depth of only
about six inches remained ; and one of the catkin-like bunches of
eggs was carefully detached. To do this neatly, without disturb-
ing the other clusters, was not so easy as it might be supposed ;
for not only did the hen octopus guard the entrance to her recess,
and require careful handling, but the old male also was pugna-
cious. As soon as he espied his keeper in the tank, he strode
forth from his corner towards him, looking exceedingly savage,
and making a demonstration of attack which would have
frightened a novice, and led a looker-on to believe that the
intruder was about to be the centre figure in a Laocoon group of
writhing, twining octopods, and to suffer the fate of C/udin, or
to escape only after a terrible combat, like Gi//zatt, in M. Victor
Hugo’s novel. But the old fellow’s bark was worse than his bite,
for on a bare arm being presented to him in the shallow water, he
made no attempt to hold or bite it, but merely scrambled and
crawled harmlessly over it.
By the removal of a portion of these eggs I hoped, also, that an
interesting question concerning their development might be finally
answered. Aristotle had been understood to affirm that the
parent octopus “incubates” her eggs. I had always expressed
very decidedly my opinion, derived from previous experiments on
the eggs of the cuttle-fish and squid (Seséa and Lo/igo) that, the
ova once impregnated, no incubation by the parent is required or
takes place in a sense equivalent to that of a fowl developing
a chick by the warmth of its body; but that her unremit-
SPAWNING OF THE OCTOPUS. 61
ting attention to them is solely for the purpose of protecting
them from injury, keeping them free from animal and vegetable
parasites, and preventing their being devoured by fishes, or
members of her own tribe—possibly by their own father. If I
had felt myself free to act according to my inclination, I should,
at once, have removed a larger number of the eggs; but in
matters concerning which nothing is positively known, and every-
thing has to be learned, caution is requisite. There was good
reason for hesitation, when care in the conduct of the observation
might remove the doubts of centuries. The first thing to be
ascertained was—Had the ova been properly fecundated—did
they contain, each, a living embryo? The microscope answered
“Yes.” Under a low power a young octopus was seen moving
freely in the fluid contained in each transparent granule, the
bright orange-brown colour in the pigment cells of its skin
flashing, dying out, and re-appearing in another place, like sparks
in tinder. And I was astonished to see that the little creature
within the unbroken membrane was already endowed with the
power of assimilating its colour to that of its surroundings. When.
light was reflected upon its surface, and through its translucent
body, from a piece of white paper laid on the mirror of the instru-
ment, it became pallid and colourless: on a bronze penny being
substituted for the paper, it assumed a darker hue; and (which
was still more remarkable) on its being disturbed by a slight
compression or agitation of the egg, its surface became suffused
with the red flush of anger and irritation which characterises the
adult under provocation.
It having been seen that many of the eggs left in their original
position had been bruised by the mother octopus, and that there
were black marks on the stone beneath them, betokening the
presence of decomposition, I was anxious to remove the
remainder from her; but, for the reason above mentioned,
amongst others, I considered it would be prudent to assure
myself that the eggs transferred to the smaller tank retained their
62 THE OCTOPUS.
vitality. Seeing, at the expiration of four days, that the young
animals within them were as lively as ever, and progressing so
rapidly that their escape from the egg might soon be expected, I
had the larger tank partly emptied again, for the purpose of taking
from the nest any that might still be uninjured. It was found,
however, that those which had not been torn away by the parent
had been squeezed by her between herself and the rockwork, and
were consequently dead, only a very few showing signs of having
been prematurely hatched by the violent rupture of the envelope:
She had overlain her babies. ‘Those which were taken from her
on the forty-second day from their extrusion for special inspec-
tion, were successfully hatched, and I do not doubt that if they
could have been kept clean and free from parasites this would
have taken place if they had been detached immediately after
they were laid. ‘The young octopods made their appearance on
the 8th, 9th, and roth of August: the eggs had been extruded on
the 1gth, 20th, and 21st of June, and. thus, although it was
proved, as I expected, that the development of the embryo does
not depend on incubation, the accuracy of Aristotle’s statement
that its period in the egg is fifty days was completely and satis-
factorily confirmed.
In the first week of January, 1875, another brood of young
octopods was hatched in the Brighton Aquarium, and in this, as
in the former instance, the period of development was that
assigned to it by Aristotle. From observations made during the
previous winter I did not expect that maturity would be completed
within this term. Two “‘nestings” of octopus then occurred; and
after twenty days, from time to time, as opportunity offered, when
the mother left them for a minute in pursuit of an active crab
scuffling away to the further end of the tank, one of the clusters
of eggs was removed, and suspended in a separate cistern. The
half-formed embryo was visible, though motionless, within the
membranous envelope; therefore it was evident that the fertilisa-
tion of the ova had been effected. But although the parent, in
SPAWNING OF THE OCTOPUS. 63
both cases, assiduously guarded them for nearly three months—
almost twice the, apparently, normal period—they were addled, as
were also those which had been detached from under her care.
It appeared to me probable that the vitality of the embryo was
destroyed in an early stage by the lower temperature of the water
during the winter months, but I was not without hopes that their
progress towards maturity might prove to be merely retarded by
the same influence,—an effect which is well known to be produced
by cold on the ova of the salmonidz. In order to test this, some
of the eggs were placed in a tank in the warm boiler-house, but
without any beneficial results. Yet the brood referred to was
hatched in water of the same temperature as that in which the
former ones were addled, varying little from 54 deg. Fahrenheit. I
am unable to account for this; so reserve my opinion of the cause
of failure, and am content to watch, and wait, and patiently note
facts, and to abstain from propounding theories on unsafe bases.
Everyone who loves and studies animals knows that each
differs from others of its species, in its habits and little ways, as
distinctly as children, and men, and women are diverse in cha-
racter and disposition. The horses you have owned, the dogs
you have loved, your cats, parrots, and even your pet cage-birds
and little white mice, have possessed widely varying characters
and idiosyncrasies. Fishes, the crustacea, and even the octopods
are not excepted from this individuality. The hen octopus in
question, whilst on sentry duty guarding her undeveloped progeny,
assumed a position and attitude totally different from that adopted
by her predecessor in maternal joys. The syringing of her eggs
with a current of water from the syphon tube ,was repeated by
her; but she never cradled them, as did the other, in the ex-
panded membrane of a limb. Her usual posture was with the
under portion of her body presented to them, her eight arms
turned completely back, exposing their under surface armed with
their battery of suckers, the muzzles of the latter pointing in
every direction, and the tip of the hard, horny beak, just dis-
64 THE OCLOPUS:
cernible. The fine ends of the arms might sometimes be seen
gently winding amongst the clusters of eggs as tenderly and
‘lovingly as a father’s fingers through the tresses of a darling
child, but there was no evident nursing in this case.
An octopus about to spawn, like some birds in search of a
nesting-place, seeks the most retired nook ‘she can find in which
to deposit her eggs. The elasticity of her body enables her to
squeeze herself through a very small orifice; and, therefore, the
narrower the entry to her den the more suitable is it for her pur-
pose, because the better adapted for defence against enemies and
intruders. A curious instance of the choice of such a nesting-
place came under my notice in March, 1874. Some fishermen,
whilst dredging in the Channel off Brighton, brought up an earthen
jar or carboy, which would hold about two gallons. It was covered
with serpule, &c., and was forthwith taken to the Aquarium.
There it was discovered that it contained an octopus and her
eggs. The neck of the jar was only two inches in diameter: the
octopus was a fully-grown specimen.
The young octopus fresh from the egg is of about the size of a
large flea, and when irritated is of nearly the same colour. It is
very different in appearance from an adult individual of the same
species. At first sight it is more like a sefza, without its tentacles,
than an octopus. The arms, which will afterwards be four or five
times the length of its body, are so rudimentary as to be even
shorter in proportion than the pedal arms of the cuttle-fish, and
appear only as little conical excrescences, having points of hair-
like fineness, and arranged in the form of an eight-rayed coronet
around the head.
At this early stage of its existence the young octopus seeks and
enjoys the light which it will, later in life, carefully shun. It
manifests no desire to hide itself in crevices and recesses, as the
adult does, but swims freely about in the water, often close to
the surface, propelling itself backward by a series of little jerks
caused by each stroke of the force pump, which expels a jet of
a
SPAWNING OF THE OCTOPUS. 65
water from the out-flow pipe of the syphon. This contrast of its
habits in youth and age is so remarkable that when, after witness-
ing the gay activity of the movements of the child-octopus, I again
watched the furtive, skulking habits of its shrivelled-skinned father,
I could not help comparing the latter with the old thief-trainer in
“Oliver Twist,” and wondering whether there ever could have
been a time in the life of Fagin the Jew when he was innocent
and frolicsome, and played, and leaped, and ran, and danced, and
revelled in the sin-exposing sunshine, ere the light of day became
odious to him, and he shrank from it as a danger to be dreaded,
and kept himself hidden in his.den whilst his emissaries went out,
like the arms of the old octopus, in search of prey for the benefit
of their employer.
I can say but little concerning the fertilisation of the eggs of
the octopidz in a book intended for readers of all classes, but it
is so remarkable that this chapter would be incomplete without
a few words upon the subject. ‘They are fecundated before, not
after, their extrusion. In the breeding season a curious alteration
takes place in one of the arms of the male octopus; according
to Steenstrup, always the third on the right side, although it has
been stated that the third arm on the left is sometimes the one
thus affected. The limb becomes swollen, and from it is
developed a long, worm-like process, furnished with two longi-
tudinal rows of suckers, from the extremity of which extends a
slender, elongated filament. When its owner offers his hand in
marriage to a lady octopus she accepts it, and keeps it, and walks
away with it, for this singular outgrowth is then detached from
the arm of her suitor, and becomes a moving creature, having
separate life,* and continuing to exist for some time after being
transferred to her keeping. In the meanwhile the lost portion
of the “ hectocotylized” arm of the male is gradually reproduced,
and in due time it assumes its former appearance.
* Several specimens of the hectocotylus in this condition may be seen in the
Museum of Natural History, Paris,
66 THE OCTOPTS.
The habits of the Eledone, of which there is only one British
species, £. cirrosa, are the same as those of Octopus vulgaris,
from which it chiefly differs in having only one row of suckers
instead of two along the under surface of its arms, Individuals
of this species have occasionally deposited a few eggs in the
Brighton Aquarium; but these have not, hitherto, arrived at
maturity. They are considerably larger than those of the octopus,
and not so numerous. The eledone is not so hardy as its relative,
and, in captivity, the female generally dies in spawning,
It is impossible for any student or observer of these animals to
avoid recognition of Aristotle’s wonderfully intimate knowledge of
their life-history, embryology, sexual conditions, and anatomy.
When I first saw the octopus guarding her eggs the thought im-
mediately rose in my mind,—‘“Aristotle must have had an
aquarium!” He might have learned by observations at the sea-
side, on the coast of the Mediterranean, the mode of progress
of the octopus when swimming and crawling, its change of colour
when excited, the form of its eggs, &c., which he has correctly
described ; but it is impossible that he could have so exactly
designated the duration of the existence of the embryo in the
ege without having had opportunities of noticing the date of its
extrusion, and that of the escape of the young octopods by the
rupture of the envelope, His mention of the remarkable sexual
development of one of the arms, its use in the impregnation of
the ova, their apparent incubation by the mother, and her inces-
sant attention to her charge, also indicates that, during the inter-
vening time, the male and the brooding female were continually
under his inspection. We are therefore led to the conclusion that
the marine aquarium, in some form, is one of the things that are
not “new under the sun.”
CHAPTER: VIL
CUTTLES AND SQUIDS.
THE common cuttle-fish (Sesza officenalis), (often called by
sailors the “ scuttle”), though flabby and clammy in death, is a
lovely object when alive. Unlike, the skulking, hiding octopus,
but equally rapacious, it loves the day-light and the freedom of
Fig. 7. The common Cuttle-fish (Sepia officinalis), and its internal shell or “ sepiostaire.
the open sea. Its predatory acts are not those of a conceale;
and ambushed brigand lying in wait behind a rock, or peeping
furtively from within the gloomy shadow of a cave; but it may better
be compared to the war-like Comanche vidette, seated motion-
F 2
68 HE OCTORGS,
less on his horse, and scanning from some elevated knoll a wide
expanse of prairie, in readiness to swoop upon a weak or un-
armed foe. Poised near the surface of the water, like a hawk in
the air, the sepia moves gently to and fro in its tank by graceful
undulations of its lateral fins,—an exquisite play of colour occa-
sionally taking place over its beautifully barred and mottled back.
When thus tranquil, its eight pedal arms are usually brought close
together, and droop in front of its head, like the trunk of an
elephant, shortened ; its two longer tentacular arms being coiled
up within the others, and unseen. Only when some small fish is
given to it, as food, isits facility of rapid motion displayed. Then,
quickly as a kingfisher darts upon a minnow, it pounces on its
prey, enfolds it in its fatal “‘ cuddle” * or embrace, and retires to a
recess of its abode to tear it piece-meal with its horny beak, and
rend it into minutest shreds with its jagged tongue. In shallow
water, however, it will often rest for hours on the bottom, after a
hearty meal, looking very much like a sleepy tortoise. The cuttle-
fishes are so voracious that fishermen regard them as unwelcome
visitors. Some localities on our own coasts are occasionally so
infested by them that the drift-netting has to be abandoned, in
consequence of their devouring the fish, or rendering them unsale-
able by tearing them with their beaks as they hang in the meshes.
The Sesza seldom lives long in confinement. Although, like
the calamaries, it often swims gently forward by the use of its side
fins, its usual mode of rapid progress is the same as that of the
octopus ; namely, darting backwards by the ejection of a stream
of water through the funnel. In a limited space, like an aquarium
tank, there is not sufficient room for its rocket-like rush, and
therefore its hinder extremities so frequently come in contact with
the rock-work, that the skin is worn through until the edge of the
* Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys says :—‘‘ The derivation of the word ‘cuttle’ is given
in the ‘Imperial Dictionary’ as from the Saxon verb ‘ cudele;’ in Welsh,
‘ cuziaw ;’ and in the Armorican, ‘ cattaff,’ or ‘cuddyo,’ all signifying the sense
of withdrawing or hiding; hence our pet word ‘ cuddle.’”
CUTTLES AND SQUIDS, 69
internal shell, or “‘sepiostaire” is visible, and death follows.
The animal cannot see behind it; and so it often happens that it
similarly comes to grief in its natural habitat, especially in calm
weather, when, as Edward Forbes says, “ not a ripple breaks upon
the pebbles to warn it that the shore isnear. An enemy appears:
the creature ejects its ink,* like a sharp-shooter discharging his
rifle ere he retreats, and then, darting away, tail foremost, under
cover of the cloud, grounds itself high upon the beach, and perishes
there.”
The following are the dimensions of a fine male Sefza which I
dissected at the Brighton Aquarium, July 3, 1875 :—
Diameter of body across the back and lateral fins 9% in.
Length of body, including marginal fin . 4 Bi WA! by
8 head . ; : fo ass
tentacles.) ;.. : : j : 2 ae
Fy shorter arms : , é : ey OL gs
= seplostaire, or “bone”. ‘ ‘ . rol ,,
Specimens of another of the Sepiidz, the diminutive Sefzola
(S. Rondeletii)—a veritable Liliputian among cuttles—are some-
times caught in shrimp-nets, and brought to the Aquarium, The
mantle-sac enclosing the body of this little Tom Thumb cepha-
lopod is about an inch in length, and in shape like a short wide-
bore mortar. The head may be supposed to be the tompion
fixed in the muzzle ; and where the trunnions would be are two
little flat fins of rounded outline. The large goggle eyes seem to
be out of all proportion to the size of their owner ; but they are,
apparently, ‘‘all the better to see with,” either to watch for a
tender young shrimp coming within arm’s reach, or to perceive
an approaching enemy. S¢fio/a, like its comparatively Brob-
dingnagian relatives, has the faculty of rapidly changing colour,
and, if angered or alarmed, its hue is almost instantaneously altered
* See page 94.
70 THE OCTOPUS.
from a pale parchment dotted with pink, to a deep reddish brown.
In its habits this little animal differs as much from the sepia as
the latter from the octopus. It
naturally buries itself up to its
eyes in the sand ; but as sand is
apt to harbour impurities, which
in a bowl or tank become cor-
rupt, and generate poisonous
sulphuretted hydrogen, the bot-
tom of these receptacles is usually
covered with fine shingle. It is
most interesting to notice how, in
obeying its burrowing propensity,
Hin. ¢. “Seltola Rondelesi the Sesiola adapts itself to its
circumstances, and entirely devi-
ates from its customary mode of
procedure. To make a sand pit for its hiding-place, it will
direct upon it strong jets of water from its funnel, and thus blow
out a cavity in which to seat itself, and allow the disturbed
particles to settle over and around it ; but, as the pebbles are too
heavy to be thus displaced by its blasting apparatus, it removes
them, one at a time, by means of its arms, which are large and
strong in proportion to its little short body.
Now and again specimens of the “little squid” (Zoligo media)
are brought in. Their movements are very graceful and pleasing.
They are gregarious, like other squids, and keep close together.
By the action of their tail-fins, they can either “go a-head” or
‘turn astern;” and it is very interesting to watch their
manceuvres. We once had in one of the tanks four of these
“little squids” (which are only about four inches long), and I
was much amused by seeing them perform, in a most ludicrous
manner, the quadrille figure called Za Zrenise. Three of them
ranged themselves side by side, and advanced towards, and
retired from a solitary one, who, for some reason, was not received
CUTTLES AND SQUIDS. ar
into their rank, but faced them. When they withdrew, stern first,
to the back of the tank, the lonely one followed them up with a
pas seul. But there the similitude ended. He was repeatedly
driven backwards to his former position, and was not allowed
the privilege of taking his partner with him.
These “little squids” are impudently voracious. I have seen
Fig. 9. The common Squid (oligo vulgaris) and its internal horny shell, or ‘ pen.”
one in single combat with a young dog-fish about four inches
long. At first I thought the fish was the aggressor, and had
seized one of the tentacular arms of the little Zo/igo as a good sub-
stitute for a worm; but it was soon apparent that the affray had
been provoked. by the carnivorous cephalopod, and that the
puppy-fish would get the worst of it ;—so they were separated.
The common squid (Zolgo vulgaris) is sometimes ‘met with by
72 THE OCTOPUS.
the trawlers off Brighton, and brought to the Aquarium in con-
siderable numbers. On the Sussex coast this species does not
appear to assemble in very large brigades, but rather in small
companies. No adult individuals have been received. They
are all “ youths in their teens,” not full-grown squids; to which
they bear the same proportion in size as a drum-and-fife-band
of boys to a regiment of stalwart soldiers. The largest English
calamary I have seen, though larger specimens have been cast
ashore on the west coast of Ireland, is one which my friend
Dr. Bowerbank kindly sent to me, of a species comparatively
rarely found in British home-waters,—Ommastrephes sagittatus.
Its dimensions were as follows :—
Length from front of head to point of tail, 214 inches.
Circumference of body, 14 inches,
Greatest breadth across tail-fins, 14 inches.
Length of each tentacular arm, 28 inches.
Length of spread from tip to tip of the two tentacular arms, 4
feet ro inches,
It was taken in the mackerel nets, and brought into Hastings
by one of the fishing boats on the 26th of September, 1873.
Unfortunately it had been much bruised and knocked about by
its captors. On endeavouring to extract the internal horny shell,
Sladius, or “pen,” which Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys well describes as
resembling a very long oar with a broad handle, I found that it
had been sadly smashed and broken across into many pieces.
Fishermen often handle very roughly animals taken in their nets
which have no value as marketable food, and this splendid squid
had probably been dashed down on the deck of the boat with
great violence. A pretence of some pains having been taken to
keep it alive was, I am told, afterwards made. Although the
“ sagittated calamary” is uncommon on our own shores, it visits
annually the coasts of Newfoundland in vast shoals, and is the
CUTTLES AND SQUIDS. 73
species to which I have referred in another chapter, as being one
of the staple baits used in the cod-fishery of that country.*
The eggs of the various families of cephalopods differ greatly
from each other. Those of the Cuttle (Sefza) are like black
grapes, each having a flexible stalk looking and feeling like india-
rubber. ‘The mother takes a turn with this stalk round the stem
of the twig or seaweed to which she wishes to attach the egg ; the
india-rubber-like material is soft and sticky when first laid ; and
so, instead ot splicing the loop, she brings the end round to the
Vig. ro, Eggs of the common Cuttle-fish (Sepza officinalis),
base of the stalk, close to the egg, and cements or welds it there
into a solid ring. Thus the eggs are attached, one by one.
Sometimes the stalk of one is fastened round that of another, and
occasionally the process is repeated until the whole mass is made
up in this way, without any central stem. The work is as well
and neatly done as if skilled hands had been employed on it, but
how the mother cuttle-fish effects it, I believe no one knows. I
hope we may some day have opportunities of watching her.
Aristotle wrote that the Sefza fastens her eggs, near land, upon
* See page 93.
14 THE OCTOPUS.
seaweeds, reeds, and other bodies which may be found on the
shore, and even around sticks and faggots placed there for the
purpose of entrapping her. ‘She does not lay them all at once,”
he says, “but at several intervals, the operation lasting fifteen
days ; and after the oviposit is completed she sheds her ink upon
them, which turns them from white to black, and causes them to
increase in bulk.” He also avers that she hatches them in the
place where she has deposited them, and is often to be seen with
her body resting on the ground, and covering them. I do not
think that the dark hue of the membranous integuments of the
eggs, and of their pedicle, or foot-stalk, is in any way attributable
to their being stained by the animal’s inky secretion, although I
have frequently seen masses of these eggs the integument of which
was not black, but perfectly colourless and pellucid. That the
mother broods over them, and protects them till they are hatched,
is quite in accordance with the observed habits of the octopus,
and is, therefore, not improbable. But, as with the octopus, I am
satisfied that no zucubation takes place.
At intervals, for many years past, I have found the eggs of the
Sepia and Loligo in early stages of their development, and have
hatched them out, without any assistance from their parent, by
merely suspending them in sea-water in a tank or tub, and
changing the water frequently. The same also has been fre-
quently done at the Brighton Aquarium. This having been
proved and demonstrated by actual experiment, it is unnecessary
to fortify facts by reasoning, But I have seen a branch of a tree
or shrub, measuring more than two feet in height from the base
of the broken stem to the upper part of its branches, and fourteen
inches from side to side across the tips of the twigs, covered with
the eggs of S¢fza in single rows along them. I cannot of course,
be certain that these were all laid by one female, but it is evident
that one could not cover so great an area continuously as an
incubator, and that, if it were possible, she would subject herself
to unnecessary toil in so doing, seeing that they were all hatched
CUTTLES AND SQUIDS, 75
in a tank, after having been for about ten days deprived of
maternal care.
The young Sesia when born is much larger than a baby oc-
topus or squid. It is of about the size of a rather small horse-
bean. When about half developed, the little animal has the head
and eyes disproportionately large, but gradually acquires a greater
resemblance to its parent. If the black integument be removed,
as one would skin a grape, it may be seen moving in the fluid
which fills the egg. Cut down to the little living grape-stone
under water, and away it will swim, with all its wits about it, and
in possession of all its faculties, with as much facility and self-
possession as if it had considerable knowledge of the world. «It
sees and avoids every obstacle, and if you take it out of the water,
in your hand, the precocious little creature, not a minute old, and
not sufficiently matured to leave the egg naturally, will spurt its
ink all over your fingers. You may tame an old cuttle-fish, and
it will learn to know that you are a friend, and intend to do it no
harm ; but the youngsters are as shy as human babies, and regard
every one but their mother as an enemy.
The preference for the light, which I described as exhibited by
the young octopus, appears to be common also to the young squid
and cuttle-fish, The latter generally seek the surface of the water;
sometimes swimming gently by means of the locomotive tube
and the undulating movement of the marginal fins, and at
others poising their bodies motionless, as if basking The
habit in these two families is not so surprising as it is in the
young octopus, because the adult Sefza and Lolo are not
cave-dwellers, but frequent the open sea, and often approach
the surface.
The spawn of the squid (Zo/igo vulgaris) consists of dozens of
semi-transparent, gelatinous, slender, cylindrical sheaths, about
four or five inches long, each containing many ova embedded in |
it, and all springing from one common centre, and resembling a
mop without a handle. Johann Bodasch, Professor of Natural
76 THE OCTOPUS.
History at Prague,* calculated that one of these mop-like masses
contained 39,766 ova; and by counting those embedded in ten of
the long gelatinous, finger-like processes, and weighing them and
the remainder, I have verified his estimate, and computed that
Fig. 11. Spawn of the common Squid (Loligo vulgaris).
in the specimen which was the subject of my investigation there
were 42,000 perfect young squids. It is evident that com-
paratively few of them live to arrive at maturity, or the sea would
teem with them ; and in every existing aquarium it has been found
impossible to rear the young cephalopods hatched there. I have
never seen these ‘‘ sea-mops” attached to anything, and the pelagic
* De quibusdam animalibus marinis. 1761.
COTTYTLES*AND SOUTDS 77
habits of the calamaries render it probable that they are left float-
ing on the surface of the sea.
A remarkable organ with which some of the cephalopoda are
provided is a sac, popularly called the “ink-bag,” in which is
stored a deep black secretion, which they are able to employ at
will as a protection from rapacious enemies. On the approach of
a suspected foe, the animal discharges a quantity of this dense fluid,
which renders turbid the surrounding water, and thus enables its
owner to escape in the obscurity. There is a communication
between this ink-bag and the funnel or locomotor-tube, already
described ; so that when the ink is ejected, it is forcibly emitted
with the stream of water which produces its rocket-like, backward
motion. ‘The very effort for escape thus serves the double pur-
pose of propelling the creature away from the danger, and dis-
colouring the water in which it moves.
Oppian has well described this :—
‘* Th’ endanger’d cuttle thus evades his fears,
And native hoards of fluids safely wears.
A pitchy ink peculiar glands supply
Whose shades the sharpest beam of light defy.
Pursued, he bids the sable fountains flow,
And, wrapt in clouds, eludes th’ impending foe.
The fish retreats unseen, while self-born night
With pious shade befriends her parent’s flight.”
The position of the ink-bag varies in different families. In the
octopus it is buried in the substance of the liver; and this animal
does not emit its ink so readily as the cuttle or squid. I have
very rarely seen it do so in captivity except when greatly exhausted
or persistently irritated. It has been said that after being a few
hours in captivity the octopus loses the power of secreting ink.
There is no foundation at all for such a statement. When placed
in a tank especially reserved for it, in which are no enemies to
cause it fear, it has no negd to conceal itself, and therefore does
not unnecessarily eject its cloudy fluid ; but I have never dissected
73 THE OCTOPUS.
an octopus, no matter how long it might have lived in confine-
ment, without finding the ink-bag fairly charged, though some
of its contents are sometimes emitted when the animal is at the
point of death.
The cuttle (Sesia) discharges it on the slightest provocation ;
and this is sometimes very troublesome and annoying when this
species is exhibited in anaquarium. The quantity of water its ink
will obscure is really surprising. The fluid is secreted with amazing
rapidity, and the black ejection frequently occurs several times in
succession. I have often seen a cuttle completely spoil in a few
seconds all the water in a tank containing a thousand gallons.
When first taken, the S¢éza is most sensitively timid. Its keen,
unwinking eye watches for, and perceives the slightest movement
of its captor ; and if even most cautiously looked at from above, its
ink is belched forth in eddying volumes, rolling over and over like
the smoke which follows the discharge of a great gun from a ship’s
port, and mixes with marvellous rapidity with the water, whilst
the animal simultaneously recedes to the best shelter it can find.
But, like all of its class, the Scfza is very intelligent. It soon
learns to discriminate between friend and foe, and ultimately
becomes very tame, and ceases to shoot its ink, unless it be
teased and excited.
Professor Owen has remarked that the ejection of the ink of
the cephalopods serves by its colour as a means of defence, as
corresponding secretions in some of the mammalia by their odour.
It is worthy of notice that the Pearly Nautilus and the allied
fossil forms are without this means of concealment, which their
strong external shells renders unnecessary for their protection.
Fishermen are well acquainted with the fact that the cephalopods
—at any rate, our British representatives of the Sesid@, Cala-
martes, and Octopoda—habitually discharge, when taken, a jet of
water, and the two former sometimes their ink, in the faces of
their captors. It has been regarded gs doubtful whether this is
an intentional act, or whether it is accidental, and consequent on
CUTTLES AND SQUIDS. 79
the bringing of the orifice of the syphon tube above the surface,
and the removal of the resistance to the out-pouring current,
which, when ejected under water, would, in the one case, have
been a means of locomotion, and, in the other, of concealment of
their whereabouts. Some have supposed that the emission is
involuntary, and is produced much in the same way as the water
is tossed up in spray by the screw of a steam-vessel when her
stern rises whilst she is pitching heavily in a rough sea. Others,
who have experienced the effect of this habit of the animals, have
persistently asserted that they take deliberate aim, with the motive
of aggression or self-defence.
Mr. Darwin, in his narrative of the “ Voyage of the Beagle,”
says that whilst looking for marine animals, with his head about
two feet above the rocky shore, he was more than once saluted by
a jet of water accompanied by a slight grating noise. At first he
could not think what it was; but he afterwards found that it was
an octopus, which, though concealed in a hole, thus led him to its
discovery ; and it appeared to him that it could certainly take
good aim, by directing the tube or syphon on the under side of
its body.
The force with which the water is expelled is often very great.
Some of the Zo/igine are capable of propelling themselves with
such momentum by a vigorous out-rush from the tube, that when
this pressure is so exerted as to cause them to take an upward
direction, they leap out of water to such a height as to fall on to
the decks of vessels, and are called by sailors “flying squids.”
Desiring to preserve some specimens of the “little squid” (Zo/igo
media), 1 possible with their colours unchanged, I put two alive
into a bottleful of spirits of wine as the best method of causing
their instantaneous death. Both of them immediately “squirted ”
with such effect that a third part of the spirits of wine was thrown
out of the bottle and spilled on the table.
I have no doubt at all that the cephalopods intentionally and
deliberately take aim, and that they are able to do so as accu-
8o THE OCTOPUS.
rately as the “Archer-fish” (Zoxotes jaculator), which by the
ejection of a drop of water from its mouth, brings down a fly from
a branch or leaf three or four feet above the surface of the water.
With the purpose of testing the swimming powers of an
octopus, and making other observations connected with its mode
of progression through the water, I experimented with one in one
of the store tanks at Brighton. I had put him through his paces,
and brought him back to the starting-post several times after he
had swum to the further end of the tank, and at last the creature
became irritated. Instead of sinking to the bottom as he had
previously tried to do, he swam along the surface away from me
till he reached the back of the tank, where he sustained himself
motionless for an instant, and then shot forth a jet of water which
struck me on the breast, and drenched my shirt-front, though I
was five feet distant from him.
I have known of many amusing instances of this squirting of
water or ink by the cuttle-fish startling the victim of it by its
unexpected suddenness.
My deceased friend Tom Hood, unaware of this propensity of
the animal, hastened to lay hold of one which he had hooked in
Looe Harbour, and, receiving its je¢ dcau full in his face, ex-
claimed that “he did not exactly know what he had on his line,
but he thought he had caught a young garden engine.”
Fishermen, when catching squid as bait, haul them up slowly
until they are nearly at the surface of the water, and then “gaff”
them by the tail, and hold them at some distance from the boat,
to allow them to discharge their ink. The Rev. J. G Wood
mentions an incident of a naval officer’s white-duck trousers being
“‘ de-decorated ” with the liquid missile of a cuttle; the aggrieved
individual asserting that it took deliberate aim for that purpose.
During a Saturday night’s chat with some Sussex fishermen
with whom I had often before held pleasant conversation on
matters appertaining to their craft, cuttle-fishes, sometimes called
by sailors “ ink-spewers,” were mentioned, and one of the party
CUTILES AND SOUIDS. $I
related the following adventure of a shipmate who was present. I
must tell it in his own language.
“We was out fishin’ one quiet night,” he said, “and had just
got our trawl awash, and was a-goin’ to hand it in-board, when
Bill, here, all of a sudden lets go his holt, roars out like a stuck
pig—‘ Oh-h-h !—What the is that?” and tumbles back’ards
into an empty fish-basket. We hadn’t no time to ’tend to him
till we’d got our haul on deck, but I guessed what was up; and
when we looked round we pretty near split our sides with laughing.
There was Bill a-leanin’ back agin the skiff, wipin’ his eyes, to get
some muck out of ’em, as he said made ’em smart, and his face
for all the world as if Davy Jones had emptied a tar-barrel on his
head, and he looking as doleful as a schoolboy as has upset the
inkstand over his hands and smeared his face with it in rubbin’
the tears away while he was a-crying for fear the master’d lick
him. Well, sir, it were one o’ them scuttles as we’re talkin’ about
as we'd brought up, and they caz shoot straight and no mistake.
It’s my opinion as Mr. Scuttle sighted Bill’s nose as soon as he
come atop of the water and aimed right at it; for you can see,
sir, as Bill’s nose looms as red as Beachy Head Light in a fog, and
any scuttle as misses it must be a focl. Bill won’t forget that
dose of ink for a good while yet—will ’ee, old man ?”
Bill is very good natured, and joined heartily in the laugh
elicited by the anecdote. The worthy fellow might have retorted
that he had seen his friend’s face, and those of half the population
of his neighbourhood simultaneously blackened, if not by a cuttle-
fish, by an equally singular accident.
In the autumn of 1872, an American full-rigged ship, bound to
London, went ashore in Seaford Bay, in consequence of the
captain mistaking the lights and (believing himself further up
Channel) pointing her head N.E. before he ought to have done
so. ‘The vessel was lightly built—a mere bandbox of a craft—
and, after beating and thumping for a short time close in shore,
she became a total wreck. The masts went by the board, and, as
G
$2 THE WOCTORES.
she broke up, the sewing-machines, metal pails, and other “Yankee
notions” with which she had been laden, were rolled and tumbled
on the beach by the breakers in a pitiable condition and sad
confusion. Amongst her cargo were a hundred casks of lamp-
black ; and at intervals one and another of these would burst with
a crash, and the contents fly out in clouds, like smoke from a
gun. The soft impalpable powder did not mix readily with the
water, and was carried to the shore and inland by the strong sea-
breeze. The coast-guards’ white buildings gradually assumed the
hue of the inside of a boiler-flue ; the beach, the grass, and the
roads in the vicinity looked as if fifty thousand chimney-sweeps
had emptied their soot-bags over them ; and the stuff fell hghtly
and gently, like a dust shower, over the throng of anxious
spectators, until the ladies appeared as if they were dressed in
deep mourning for the catastrophe, and the faces of all, moistened
by the salt spray, and bespattered and powdered with the subtle
material, became as black as a negro’s, and as shiny as a well-
blacked stove. A visitor arriving suddenly amongst them, with-
out access to a looking-glass, might well have believed that he
had discovered a’ colony of panic-stricken Christy minstrels. The
sublime, the sorrowful, and the ridiculous have, perhaps, never been
more intimately blended than in that scene of dashing, foaming
breakers, tossed and battered wreckage, and smutted faces. Even
Denys De Montfort’s “colossal poulpe,” which he described as
deluging a ship from its syphon tube, would not have had an ink-
bag large enough to produce such an effect by its contents.
CHAPTER. EX.
ECONOMIC VALUE OF CUTTLE-FISHES.
I witt now try to answer M. Hugo’s question concerning
“these blasphemies of creation against itself”—‘‘ Of what use are
such creatures? What purpose do they serve?”
It must not be supposed that in mentioning a few facts relative
to their economic value to mankind I consent to the narrow and
conceited doctrine that, either by laws fixed from the beginning,
or by successive fiats of creation, they were especially provided
for the future advantage of the human race. Many genera of
them, which formed no unimportant portion of the fauna of the
ancient seas, lived and died, and their families became extinct,
ages upon ages before man’s appearance on the earth. He has, it
is true, utilised them to a certain extent, and in various ways. In
some parts of the world they are a recognised addition to the focd
supply of the population; and, in others, the means by which fishes
more valuable than themselves are obtained, and become market-
able produce. But that this is the sole object of their being, I
cannot for a moment suppose; and therefore I am content to
believe that the Great Architect of the Universe made them and
all things for Himself, and that for His pleasure they are and
were created.
Although the cephalopods are seldom eaten in Great Britain,
they are appreciated as food by nearly all other maritime nations.
Along the western coast of France, and in the countries bordering
on the Mediterranean and Adriatic, they form a portion of the
habitual sustenance of the people, and are regularly exposed for
sale in the markets, both in a fresh and dried condition. Salted
G2
84 LHE OCTOPES.
cuttles and octopus are there eaten during Lent as commonly as
salted cod are brought to table in England on Good Friday ; and,
thus prepared, generally form a portion of the provisions supplied
to the Greek fishing-boats and coasters.* The Indians of North-
* The following interesting information, which appeared in the Standard of
December 25th, 1874, is derived from a Report on the Tunisian Fisheries by
Mr. W. Kirby Green, H.B.M. Consul at Tunis, published in May, 1872.
“During Advent and Lent, the octopus is largely consumed by the Orthodox
Greek Catholics, amongst whom the use of meat and fish is prohibited in those
seasons of abstinence. ‘This strange diet is chiefly obtained from Tunis, and
in the Levant and Greek markets its trade name is ‘‘ octopodia” or ‘‘ polpi.”
The villages in the neighbourhood of Karkenah are the chief localities where
this species of cephalopoda are obtained, and the produce of this fishery, in a
year of abundance, yields about 2,500 cwt. of polypi ; in an average year, about
1,800 cwt. ; in a year of scarcity, 1,050 cwt. In a good season the whole of
the Island of Karkenah supplies about 3,000 cwt. ; and the Jerbah waters a
third of this quantity. On the shores from the village of Luesa to that of
Chneies, in the Gulph of Khabs, the natives collect from four to five cwt. of
octopods a day during the season; but this supply generally serves for the
consumption of the Regency. The remaining coast and islands may be cal-
culated to furnish a minimum of 650 cwt. to 700 cwt. of dried fish.
The octopods prefer the rocky shallows, and are found in those waters,
coming from the open sea, in the months of January, February, and March ;
but a considerable number remain permanently near the shore. It has been
observed that when their fry are numerous from the months of June to August,
the fishery of the coming season is sure to be abundant, whilst the reverse is
the case if they appear in numbers in November and December. On the
arrival of the octopods in the shallows they keep in masses or shoals, but
speedily separate in search of shelter among the rocks near the beach, covered
by only one or two feet of water, and in stony localities prepared for them by
the fishermen, in order to facilitate the depositing of their spawn.
In deep water they are taken by means of earthen jars strung together and
lowered to the bottom of the sea, where they are allowed to remain for a
certain number of hours, and into which the fish introduce themselves. Fre-
quently from eight to ten octopods are taken from every jar at each visit of the
fishermen. In less deep water earthenware drain pipes are placed side by side
for distances frequently exceeding half a mile in length, and in these also the
octopods enter, and are subsequently captured. As they are attracted by all
white, smooth, and bright substances, the natives deck places in the creek,
and hollows of the rocks with white stones and shells, over which the polypi
spread themselves, and so are caught from four up to eight at atime. But the
most successful manner of securing these fish is pursued by the inhabitants of
ECONOMIC VALUE OF CUTTLE-FISHES. 85
Western America look upon them as the proverbial alderman
regards turtle, and devour them with the same gusto and relish ;
Karkenah, who form long lanes and labyrinths in the shallows by planting the
butt ends of palm branches at short distances from each other, and these
constructions extend over spaces of two or more miles. On the ebb of the tides
which in the Little Syrtis is considerable (ten feet), thus differing from the rest
of the Mediterranean, the octopods are found in the pools inside the inclosures,
and are easily collected by the fishermen, who string them in bunches, called
‘‘risma,” and from eight to ten of these, each containing 50 fish, are secured
daily through the season by every boat’s crew of four men. The produce of this
fishery could apparently be considerably augmented by the increased construction
of palm butt labyrinths, which appear to have a peculiar attraction for the polypi,
but it is doubtful whether the demand for octopods is capable of further develop-
ment, for the consumption of this product is restricted to the countries where
the rigours of the fast of the Orthodox Greek Church are still observed.
The Tunisian Government claims a third of all the polypi fished upon its
coast. The native fishermen, in general, sell their octopods to the merchants
in anticipation, the latter making them pecuniary advances, four or five months
before the season, at a stipulated price for the fish, which is seldom, however,
below 20s. the cwt. Should the fishermen fail to supply the quantity con-
tracted for, the merchant is entitled to demand that they should procure for
him the requisite weight of fish elsewhere ; but this power is rarely enforced, a
new agreement being more frequently entered into for the coming season, on
proportionately favourable terms for the purchaser. Another practice is also
followed for the purchase of octopods. The merchant makes an advance to
the fishermen a month before the season, and receives back the value of his
money at the first public sale, at the current price, with an addition in his
favour of 5 per cent. on the amount disbursed.
The octopus has hitherto been prepared for exportation by simply salting
and drying, but it is now preserved either in oil or brine, after subjecting it to
a preliminary scouring and boiling process.
The price for octopods varies considerably, according to the size, supply, and
demand ; but at Sfax a pair of fresh fish may cost, as circumstances rule, from
6d. to 1s. 3¢. However, the preparatory maceration, by beating on a stone
slab or rock, required before drying, entails a small additional expense, and
brings the extremes of low and high prices to 25s. or 50s. percwt. To the
cost price must be added an export duty of 55. 1d., and the purchaser ought
to be careful to receive his merchandise from the seller during dry weather, as
a damp day will add from 4 to 5 per cent. to the weight of every cwt.
Malta receives the largest part of the Tunisian octopods, but they are only
sent to that island for ultimate transmission to Greece and other parts of the
Levant. Portugal is one of the few countries that competes with Tunis in
86 THE OCTORUS:
only the savage roasts the glutinous carcase, instead of making
soup of it. In Chili, Peru, Brazil, and Teneriffe, they are eagerly
sought for; and they are an article of daily consumption in India
and China, and especially in Japan, where there is a very im-
portant trade in them. Professor Edward Forbes * relates his
experience of the use of them by the Greeks :—
“The traveller who, when treading the shores of the coasts
and islands of the A°gean, observes, as he can scarcely fail to do,
the innumerable remains of the hard parts of cuttle-fishes piled
literally in heaps along the sands—or, when watching the Greek
fishermen draw their nets, marks the number of these creatures
mixed up with the abundance of true fishes taken and equally
prized as articles of food by the captors—-can at once understand
why the naturalists of ancient Greece should have treated so fully
of the history of the cephalopoda, and its poets have made
allusions to them as familiar objects. One of the most striking
spectacles at night on the coasts of the A®gean is to see the
numerous torches glancing along the shores, and reflected by the
still and clear sea, borne by poor fishermen paddling as silently as
possible over the rocky shallows in search of the cuttle-fish, which,
when seen lying beneath the waters in wait for his prey, they
dexterously spear, ere the creature has time to dart with the
rapidity of an arrow from the weapon about to transfix his soft
but firm body. As in ancient times, these molluscs constitute,
now, a valuable part of the food of the poor, by whom they are
chiefly used. We can ourselves bear testimony to their excel-
lence. When well beaten, to render the flesh tender, before being
dressed, and then cut up into morsels and served in a savoury
supplying the Greek markets with polypi. In Greece, the octopods are either
sold after being pickled, at from £12 16s. to£15 9s. the cantar of 176lb., or
in their original dried state at from £12 to £14, but it must be understood that
these prices are subject to considerable fluctuations arising from the favourable
or unfavourable state of the season’s fishery.
* Travels in Lycia ; by Lieut. (now Admiral) A. B. Spratt, R.N., F.G.S.,
and Professor Edward Forbes, F.R.S.
ECONOMIC VALUE OF CUTTLE-FISHES. 87
brown stew, they make a dish by no means to be despised,
excellent in both substance and flavour. A modern Lycian
dinner, in which stewed cuttle-fish formed the first, and roast
porcupine the second course, would scarcely fail to be relished by
an unprejudiced epicure in search of novelty.”
I have tasted the octopus, sepia, and loligo, and am quite of
Professor Forbes’s opinion that they are very palatable when
really well cooked. ‘They are all the better for being dressed
with made gravy, but may be eaten plainly boiled, and served
with egg-sauce. ‘They are apt, however, to be very tough unless
slowly simmered, and should first be well beaten with a wooden
mallet or the flat of a cleaver. At Gibraltar, the Spanish fisher-
men may frequently be observed engaged in softening an octopus
by dashing it several times with great violence on the stone
landing steps at the fish-market.* The flavour is not unlike that
of the skate, or the white part of a scallop. A writer in the
‘Echo ” called the flesh of the octopus “a sort of marine tripe,
the chief merit of which lay in the sauce in which it was served.”
I am inclined to agree with him.
* The special correspondent at Gibraltar of the Dazly Telegraph (Mr. George
Augustus Sala) wrote as follows on this subject :—For the information of Mr.
Henry Lee, I may observe that nothing whatever is known at Gib. about the
terrible octopus who is said to have sucked the boatswain of a man-of-war into
the lowermost depths of Davy Jones’s locker ; but there are legends commonly
recited in the smoking-room of the King’s Arms as to an octopus that held on
to a sharp rock with one set of suckers, and capsized a felucca from Algeciras
with the other. The Spaniards eat this horrible creature very willingly.
When they catch him, they first pound him violently between two stones, as
some cooks are in the habit of thwacking beefsteaks of which the tenderness
is doubtful, and then they hang him up in the sun until his abominable body
and limbs are dried. Ultimately they fry him in oil, and declare that he is
very nice. I have an idea that I must have eaten fried octopus for supper at
Bobadilla, and that it was the delicacy which gave me such a thorough disgust
of the place. The octopus, nevertheless, under the name of Jz/po, is popular
enough throughout Southern Spain, and is equally common, and equally
devoured, on the coast of Algeria and Morocco.—Daily Telegraph, March 15
1875.
88 THE OCTOPUS:
Pd
To many persons who have not, like the Greeks, been accus-
tomed from childhood to regard it as a delicacy, the appearance
of an octopus, alive or dead, is very revolting; and I admit that
its boiled carcase, put before one in unadorned simplicity, is not
appetizing. 3
I shall never forget the utter loathing, ludicrously mingled with
determination to conquer or conceal that feeling, which was
depicted on the countenances of some of the guests at a me-
morable “ octopus-lunch” given by my friend Sir John Cordy
Burrows at Brighton, in 1874.
His cook had never before prepared an octopus, and was, pro-
bably, not well pleased to do so then. ‘The nasty-looking object
was placed on the table in all its undisguised ugliness. Its skin,
which in the process of boiling had become lividly purple, and had
not been removed, was in places offensively broken and abraded ;
and its arms, shrivelled and shrunk, sprawled helplessly on the
dish, and, somehow, looked, as they proved to be, as tough and
ropy as so many thongs of hunting-whips. Our genial host saw
in an instant that it was a failure in cookery, but, as usual, he was
equal to the occasion. With a twinkle of his eye he “took a sly
glance at me,” and gravely handed a portion of the octopus to an
honoured guest. ‘ Now, sir,” said he, “just taste that, and
enjoy one of the luxuries of the ancient Greeks!” The ancient
Greeks were, as it seemed to me, mentally anathematized ; but
the plate was accepted, its contents earnestly scanned, the knife
and fork just brought into contact with the viand, and then all
were thrust hastily away. <A gallant colonel, who would probably
be in “ the first flight ” across country, and would not hesitate to
lead a charge of his regiment, also “‘craned” at his plate, and
declined to taste the “luxury.” Sir Cordy then looked to me as
his “forlorn hope.” With the air of a veteran and connoisseur I
helped him and myself to some of the most approved portions of
the leathery creature. Manfully and perseveringly for some
ninutes I tried to masticate a mouthful of it, but it was useless ;
ECONOMIC VALUE OF CUTTLE-FISHES. — 89
and feeling that if human teeth could make no more impression
on it than on the sole of an old boot, the human stomach incurred
risk of difficulties which all the well-known medical skill of our
good host might be unable to cure, I declined to sacrifice myself
to an idea, and ; well, I did not swallow it.
The octopus had not been beaten. Wewere! Iafterwards saw
this little private experiment seriously described in a newspaper
paragraph, which was extensively quoted, as an endeavour to intro-
duce to the public a new and valuable article of marketable food. A
In my opinion, the squid, or sleeve (Zolzgo), is the best of the three.
Rondeletius recommends their being dressed with oil and vinegar.
On the Normandy coast they are boiled with onions and other
vegetables, the liquor being saved as good stock for soup. At
Marseilles they are stuffed with dried tendrils of the vine. The
Chinese and Japanese prefer them seasoned with vinegar and
ginger, and attribute to the flesh various medicinal properties. In
Mauritius and the neighbouring islands they are generally curried.
The various genera of cuttle-fishes were held in high estimation
by the ancients; and it was a custom of the Greeks to send them
out as presents on the fifth day after the birth of a child, and
before giving ita name. At the nuptial feast of Iphicrates, who
married the daughter of Cotys, King of Thrace, a hundred polypi
and sepiz were served. The Greek epicures prized them most
when they contained “roe,” and had them cooked with highly
seasoned sauces. The Lacedemonians boiled them entire, and
were not disgusted by the black froth formed by their inky liquor
diffusing itself in the water.
In “The Deipnosophists” of Athenzus are numerous quo-
tations from older writers relating to the use, as food, of the
various kinds of cuttle-fishes. Athenzeus, who was an Egyptian,
born in Naucratis, a town on the left side of the Canopic mouth
of the Nile, lived and wrote in the first half of the third century.
He appears to have been imbued with a great love of learning,
in the pursuit of which he indulged in the most extensive and
y
90 THE OCTOPUS.
multifarious reading. His ‘“common-place book” must have
been a marvel of industrious annotation and careful record, for
he has saved from oblivion, by his extracts from their writings,
many authors whose works have been long ago lost, and of whose
existence future generations would have been unaware, if he, by
his faithful and painstaking acknowledgment of his indebtedness
to them, had not handed them down to posterity. He devotes
many chapters to the history of festive entertainments, and the
dishes served at banquets of the old Romans and Greeks ; and
by his collection from numerous authors of passages, some of
which contain but a few words, and were probably regarded by
their contemporaries as of fugitive interest, has given us an insight
of the elaborate preparations made for dinner-parties, and the
appreciation of artistic cookery by gowrmets in those days. Some.
of our household cooks in this nineteenth century would “give
warning ” instantly if asked to get ready for table for their master’s
friends such a profuse variety of dishes. Course followed course
in skilfully arranged sequence, all intended to tempt the palate, or
supposed to possess some medicinal or stomachic virtue, and
presenting, in their combination, a feast compared with which our
lord mayor’s dinners are unrefined in their mere plenty. In all
important entertainments, public or private, the cuttle-fishes of
the Mediterranean were highly esteemed as delicacies, and were
as well known and regularly looked for in the mevw as are salmon
and turbot at similar gatherings now. In the following extracts
from the notebook of Athenzeus, by the “ polypus” is meant the
Octopus, by the “cuttle-fish” the Seéza, and by the “squid” or
“«squill,” the genus represented by our Lofzgo.
Plato, the comic poet, mentioning in his “ Phaon” the banquet
of Philoxenus the Leucadian, says :-—
‘** Good-sized folyfzs in season,
Should be boiled—to roast them’s treason,
But if early, and not big,
Roast them ; boiled ar’n’t worth a fig.”
ECONOMIC VALUE OF CUTTLE-FISHES. gt
Alexis, in his ‘‘ Pseudypobolemzeus,” writes :—
Take the stiff feelers of the Aolypus,
And with them you shall find some modest liver
And cutlets of wild goats, which you shall eat.
The eggs of the octopus and sepia were also regarded as dainties.
Hegemon of Thasos thus refers to them in his “ Philuma :”—
Go quickly ! buy me of that Jolypus,
And fry the voz, and give it us to eat.
a
But to fry octopus was not, by some, considered good cooking.
Nicostratus of Philetzrus says, in the “ Antyllus :”—
I never again will venture to eat cuttle-fish which has been dressed in a
frying-pan.
They ate heartily at breakfast in those times, it seems, for Epi-
charmus tells us in “ The Sirens :”—
In the morning early, at the break of day,
We roasted plump anchovies,
Cutlets of well-fed pork and folyZi ;
And then we drank sweet wine.
Philoxenus, the poet of Cythera, is reported to have been a very
greedy man. He wished that he had a throat three cubits long,
that he might drink as long as possible, and that his food might
all at once delight him. Machon, the comic poet, relates how
his fondness for well-cooked octopus and his insatiate gluttony
caused his death :—
They say Philoxenus, the ancient poet
Of Dithyrambics, was so wonderfully
Attached to fish, that once at Syracuse
He bought a polypus two cubits long,
Then dress’d it, and then ate it up himself,
All but the head—and afterwards fell sick,
Seized with a sharp attack of indigestion.
Then when some doctor came to him to see him
92 THE OCTOPUS.
Who saw that he was greatly out of order ;
‘* If,” said the doctor, ‘‘ you have any business
Not well arranged, do not delay to settle it,
For you will die before six hours are over !”
Philoxenus replied, ‘‘ All my affairs,
O Doctor, are well ended and arranged
Long, long ago; but now, since deadly fate
Calls me away, who can’t be disobeyed,
That I may go below with all my goods,
Bring me the relics of that polypus |”
We learn something of the most approved methods of cooking
the “cuttle-fishes” and “squids” from the following passages.
Sotades, in his play entitled “The Shut-up Women,” introduces a
cook, who makes a speech in which these molluscs are men-
tioned :-—
A fine dish is the squill, when carefully cook’d,
But the rich cuttle-fish is eaten plain ;
Though I did stuff them all with a rich forced-meat
Of almost every kind of herb and flower.
Alexis, in his “ Wicked Woman,” also introduces a cook, who
speaks as follows :—
Now these three cuttle-fish I have just bought
For one small drachma. And when I’ve cut off
Their feelers and their fins, I then shall boil them ;
And, cutting up the main part of their meat
Into small discs, and rubbing in some salt,
After the guests already are sat down
I then shall put them in the frying-pan,
And serve up hot towards the end of supper.
Eriphus says, in his “ Meliboea :” —
These things poor men cannot afford to buy ;—
The entrails of the tunny, or the head
Of greedy pike, or conger, or cuttle-fish,
Which I don’t think the gods above despise.
Athenzeus cites a great many more authors, who testify to the
esteem in which the cephalopoda were held in the olden times,
as the constituents of dainty dishes.
ECONOMIC VALUE OF CUTTLE-FISHES. 93
Cuttle-fishes are employed as bait by fishermen, and, by their
abundance at certain seasons in the neighbourhood of Newfound-
land, they exercise an important influence on the cod-fishery;
thus playing, as D’Orbigny remarks, an important part in the
commerce of the most flourishing nations of Europe.
From a letter from Mr. W. E. Cormack, an intelligent Newfound-
land merchant, who distinguished himself by being the first
European who succeeded in crossing Newfoundland—communi-
cated by Professor Jameson to the “ Edinburgh New Philosophical
Journal” (1826, p. 32)—we learn that more than a hundred millions
of cod are caught annually with cuttle-fish as bait, about two
hundred millions with the capelin, and one hundred millions with
herrings and “ shell-fish.”
Poole, in Dorsetshire, has long been one of the principal ports
and depots of the Newfoundland trade. My friend Mr. Wm.
Penney of that town, very kindly obtained for me, in compliance
with my request, some authentic recent information on the
subject from a gentleman who for many years resided in New-
foundland, as the agent of a Poole firm. He writes :—
“My friend Mr. E——, who has gpent some years in New-
foundland, informs me that the bait used for the cod-fishery there
at the commencement of May is the herring; during June, July,
and August, the capelin; and about the end of August, and
throughout September they use the squids, which come into the
bays in great abundance. ‘They are caught by means of a
“‘jigger,” which is a conical piece of lead, round the circumference
of the base of which are inserted eight or ten hooks. The fisher-
men go out in punts squid-jigging of an evening, to catch the bait
required for the next day’s fishing. About 1oo or more squids
are caught by each boat, and thousands of them are taken during
the season about 150 or 200 yards from the shore, in tolerably
deep water. In many stations more than a dozen boats are
engaged in squid-catching. During the squid-jigging the fisher-
men hollo and shout, and make a great noise ; for what purpose
94 THE OCTOPUS.
Mr. E does not know. All parts of the squid are cut up,
and used as bait; what is not required the next day is thrown
away or given to the pigs. In the northern district, between
Cape Freels and Cape St. John, the fishing spots are at Robin’s
Cave Head, and Friday’s Bay, on the anchorage ground. The
fishing takes place about sun-down. The squid is of an oval form,
and resembles somewhat our cuttle-fish, but it has no solid bone.
The length of the body is from eight inches to a foot, and it is
about two inches in diameter. The flesh is said by the fishermen
to be remarkably sweet and good eating, and to be excellent
fried. About the end of September the squid disappears, and
herring are then again caught : thus herring forms the bait for the
fishery at the commencement and end of the fishing season. Mr.
13) believes that the squid is caught and used for bait all
round Newfoundland, but he can only speak with certainty of the
northern district.”
I learn from other sources that the same mode of fishing is
followed in other parts of Newfoundland, and that hundreds of
boats are engaged during September in “jigging;” a crew of
three men usually taking ffem one hundred to five hundred in a
day.. The squids come into the bays in such vast shoals that
sometimes, during violent gales, hundreds of tons of them are
thrown up together in beds on the flat beaches, and their decay
spreads an intolerable effluvium around.*
The Greek fishermen use, as a “jigger,” the bone of the Sesza
surrounded with hooks, believing it to be more attractive than the
leaden weight above described.
* A gentleman engaged in the cod fishery, and residing at Fogo, New-
foundland, has told me that he was startled one evening by an unusual sound
at the back of his house, which is at the head of the harbour, and the next
morning found three barrels of squids dead on the shore. The same gentleman
received information, on the 29th of June, 1873, of a gigantic squid having
been picked up in Trinity Bay, and seen by Mr. Haddon, school inspector.
Tt measured sixteen feet in length. The squid used so abundantly as bait in the
Newfoundland cod-fishery is Ommastrephes sagittatus.
BPCOHOCMIC VALUE OF CULTLE-FISHES. 95
This mode of catching squid is of very early origin. It was
a common practice in Oppian’s time, although the “jigger” he
describes was somewhat different from that now in use. He
writes :—
For s/eves a slender shaft the swain provides
Cylindric, like a distaff : round the sides
Adjacent hooks their radiant files extend,
With points supine the dreadful rows descend,
To silent deeps the fatal engine slides,
The steely curves a painted rainbow hides.
The incurious sleve invades his artful fate,
And throws his branching snouts around the bait.
Within the hooks the thready tendrils twine,
Entangled in th’ embrace they would resign.
In vain to disengage his hold he tries,
In his own chains the self-caught captive dies.
Oppian also describes another method of taking cuttles, which
in some localities is still resorted to at certain seasons. The
fishermen fasten the end of a line round a living female octopus
or sepia, and lower her down towards a rocky bottom. On the
male coming to woo he comes to woe, for both are pulled up
together.
There is nothing incredible in this. The Japanese, at the
present day, use a spawning female fish as a lure for others of the
same species. Having found one nearly, but not quite, ready to
deposit her roe, they squeeze from her a portion of it, which hangs
suspended from the body, and then anchor her near the shore by
a hook and line. The males are instinctively drawn to the spot,
a seine is shot round them, and all are easily taken. A similar
process is commonly resorted to by entomologists for the capture
of rare species of moths and butterflies.
Cuttles are often caught in the Adriatic by sinking in the sea
branches of trees and faggots, which entice them, as being suitable
spawning ground and offering good anchorage for their eggs. ;
It is somewhat remarkable that whilst the octopus shuns the
light and retreats from that of a lanthorn, the cuttle and squid are
96 THE OCTOPUS.
attracted by it. At Trincomalee, at certain seasons of the year,
the bay is illuminated during the night by hundreds of lights of
fishing boats moving hither and thither. A dead cuttle is generally
the bait used. This is suspended in the water, and when hauled
in from time to time, one or more of its species are found fast to
it, and feeding on their deceased relative. When removed from
the water they emit a peculiar “squelching” noise, which has
been compared to the grunting of a hog. It appears to me to be
caused by the forcing of air, instead of water, through the syphon
tube.*
They are also frequently taken by spearing, as described by
Edward Forbes; and my friend, Mr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S.,
mentions f having seen in a curious Japanese book, preserved in
the British Museum, a picture of a man in a boat engaged in
catching cuttle-fishes with a spear, and also of a fishmonger’s
shop in Japan at which a number of enormous cuttle-fishes are
represented hanging up for sale. .
The crystalline lens of the eye, which is soft in quadrupeds, and
cartilaginous in fishes, is very solid in the cephalopoda. It is
almost eaicareous, and very peculiar in its form. It consists of
two double concave portions, divided by a deep groove, in which
are inserted the ciliary processes. The two halves, which are
almost globose at their outer surfaces, separate easily, and exhibit
internally a series of concentric coats, which reflect light with a
* In Jonathan Couch’s manuscript diary, which I have had the gratification
of perusing, the following entry appears, dated 1819 :—‘‘ John Hotton (a
fisherman of Polperro), informs me that some time since he was at sea for the
purpose of catching cuttles, when the night was so dark, that, though cuttles
were in plenty and followed the bait to the surface, he could not see to hook
them. He then desired his son to take a lanthorn, and hold it close to the
water so that he might see; when, to his surprise, a great many cuttles gathered
round the light, and without bait or hook he caught eighteen by hooking them
with the rod (gaff). Since then he has more than once put the same plan in
practice with success.”
t ‘‘ Intellectual Observer,” vol. ii., p. 164.
ZCONOAC VALUE: OF CULTILE-FISHES. 07
beautiful nacreous opalescence and play of colours. In some
parts of Italy the women use these lenses as beads for necklaces.
I have seen them thus worn at Genoa on festival days. They
appear also to have been used as ornaments by the ancient
Peruvians. Dr. J. E. Gray, in his “ Spzcilegia Zoologica,” pub-
lished in 1828, says that the Rev. Mr. Hennah brought to this
country several of a large size which he found in the tombs and
old habitations of the natives; and that Mr. Stutchbury had
informed him that the Sandwich Islanders sold these lustrous
eyes to the Russians as pearls.
The “cuttle-bone” or dorsal plate of Sefza, sometimes called
“ sea-biscuit,” from its shape and its being frequently found float-
ing on the surface of the water, is used, when pounded, as polish-
ing powder, by jewellers, and, under the name of “ pounce,” to
smooth writing-paper where an erasure has been made with a
penknife. Known as “white coral powder,” it used to be re-
garded as the very best dentifrice,* and was formerly prescribed
in medicine as an antacid and absorbent.
The Roman ladies employed it, burned and pulverised, as a
cosmetic for the face ; and it was, no doubt, a good substitute for
the “pearl powder” now in fashion. Broken pieces of it are
also occasionally placed between the wires of the cages of song-
birds, for them to peck at, instead of chalk or other calcareous
‘substances.
The “ink” which the cuttle-fish has the power of ejecting when
alarmed, for the purpose of obscuring the water and hiding its own
retreat, was formerly used in writing. Cicero mentions this use
of it, and from it is also made the true “sepia” of artists. I
have more than once lately seen it stated that the ink of the
cuttle-fish is no longer employed for this purpose, and that
“sepia” is now prepared from lamp-black. A great deal of
rubbish of this kind is probably sold; but I have recently seen
* One of the recipes for ‘‘areca-nut tooth-powder” is :—**‘ Ground areca-
nuts, three parts ; cuttle bone, one part ; flavour with cloves or cassia.”
H
98 THE OCTOPUS.
at Messrs. Newman’s, the well-known artists’ colourmen, in Soho»
Square, thousands of the ink-bags of cuttles in the raw state,
ready to be manufactured into “sepia.” The fishermen of some
of our southern counties, when cleaning cuttles and squids for
bait, habitually dry the ink-bags and their contents, and preserve
them until Messrs. Newman’s agent visits the district and collects.
them. If the Newfoundland fishermen, when “ squid-jigging,”
would take the trouble to preserve the ink-bags, they would find:
a ready sale for them, and might make of them a profitable per-
quisite. The beautiful drawings with which Cuvier illustrated his.
“Anatomy of the Mollusca” were executed with the ink which
he had collected whilst dissecting many specimens of the cepha-
lopoda ; and it is well known that fossil cuttle-fishes have been
found with the ink-bag perfect, and that from its contents excel-
lent ‘‘ sepia” has been obtained. Some of these ink-bags found in:
the lias, associated with traces of the “pen” or inner shell, are
nearly twelve inches long, and must have belonged to calamaries
of gigantic size. It is an oft-told anecdote that the late Dr. Buck-
land gave some of this fossil ink to Sir Francis Chantrey, who —
pronounced it to be of unusually good quality, and with it made
a drawing of the specimen from which it was taken. This drawing
is now in the possession of Dean Buckland’s son and Sir Francis’s.
godson, my friend Frank Buckland. I have also seen a cake of
fossil sepia prepared by Messrs. Newman for Professor Dick, of
Cambridge, about the year 1850, which rubs as smoothly, and is as
rich in colour, as that manufactured from the ink of recent cuttle-
fishes.
GHAR EER 2:
GIGANTIC CUTTLE-FISHES.
THE history of the ancient belief in the existence of gigantic
cephalopods is somewhat obscure. All that we know of it is from
passages in the works of a few old Greek and Latin authors, and
a series of Scandinavian traditions. I have already referred to
the “monstrous polypus” mentioned by Pliny,* which, at Cartceia,
in Grenada, used to come out of the sea at night, and carry off
salted tunnies from the curing depots on the shore, and also to
the incident recorded by A‘lhan,t who describes his monster as
crushing up the barrels of salt-fish in its arms, to get at the
contents. Inthe legends of northern nations stories of the existence
of a marine animal of such enormous size that.it more resembled
an island than an organised being frequently found a place; and
though the descriptions given of it were wild and extravagant, it is
not difficult to recognise in the ill-drawn and distorted portrait the
attempted likeness of one of the cephalopoda. Olaus Magnus ¢
relates many wondrous narratives of sea-monsters,—tales which
had gathered and accumulated marvels as they were passed on
from generation to generation in oral history, and which he took
care to bequeath to his successors undeprived of any of their
fascination.
“Eric Pontoppidan, the younger, Bishop of Bergen, is generally,
but unjustly, regarded as the inventor of the fabulous Kraken, and
* ‘* Naturalis Historie,” lib. ix., cap.-30. A.D. 77.
_ + Lib. iii, cap. 6, Deanim. A.D. 220 to 250.
+ ‘* Historia de gentibus Septentrionalibus.” A.D. 1555. Olaus Magnus,
archdeacon, is frequently mistaken for Johan Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala.
H 2
100 THE SOC TOPE.
is constantly misquoted by authors who have never read his work,*
and who, one after another, have copied from their predecessors
erroneous statements concerning him. More than half a century
before him Christian Francis Paullinus,+ a physician and naturalist
of Eisenach, who evinced in his writings an admiration of the
marvellous rather than of the useful, had described as resembling
Gesner’s “ Heracleoticon,” a monstrous animal which occasionally
rose from the sea on the coasts of Lapland and Finmark, and
which was of such enormous dimensions that a regiment of
soldiers could conveniently manceuvre on its back. Pontoppidan
was not a fabricator of falsehoods; but, in collecting evidence
relating to the “‘ great beasts” living in “‘the great and wide sea,”
was influenced, as he tells us, by ‘‘a desire to extend the popular
knowledge of the glorious works of a beneficent Creator.” His
fault, or mistake, was that he gave too much credence to old
narratives and traditions of floating islands and sea monsters, and
to the superstitious beliefs and exaggerated statements of ignorant
fishermen. If those who abuse him had lived in his day they
would probably have done the same. ‘The tone of his concluding
remarks is not that of an intentional deceiver and knave. He
says he “believes the accounts given to be true and well attested,”
and that he “‘leaves it to future writers to complete what he has
imperfectly sketched out, by further experience, which is always
the best instructor.” No wonder, therefore, that his evident
sincerity and the respectability of episcopal advocacy obtained
belief for the fable of the Kraken.
The Norwegian bishop was a conscientious, if over-credulous
man: but the same cannot be said of Denys de Montfort, who,
half a century later not only professed to believe in the existeitce
of the Kraken, but also of another gigantic animal distinct from
it; a “colossal pouwlpe,” or octopus, compared with which Pliny’s
was amere pigmy. Ina drawing fitter to decorate the outside of
* ** Natural History of Norway,” cap. 8. A.D. 1754.
tT Born 1643; died 1712.
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Fig. 12.—Facsimile of De Montfort’s ‘* Poze colossal.”
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GIGANTIC CULTTLE-FISHES. 103
a showman’s caravan at a fair than seriously to illustrate a work
von natural history,* he depicted this tremendous cuttle-fish as
throwing its arms over a three-masted vessel, snapping off its
masts, tearing down the yards, and on the point of dragging it to the
‘bottom, if the crew had not succeeded in cutting off its immense
limbs with cutlasses and hatchets. De Montfort had good
Opportunities of obtaining information, for he was at one time an
assistant in the geological department of the Museum of Natural
History in Paris ; and wrote a work on conchology,t besides that
already referred to. But it appears to have been his deliberate
purpose to cajole the public ; for it is reported that he exclaimed
to M. Defrance : ‘If my entangled ‘ship is accepted, I will make
my ‘colossal poulpe’ overthrow a whole fleet.” Accordingly we
find him gravely declaring { that one of the great victories of the
British navy was converted into a disaster by the monsters which
-are the subject of his history. He boldly asserted that the six
men-of-war captured from the French by Admiral Rodney in the
West Indies on the 12th of April, 1782, together with four British
ships detached from his fleet to convoy the prizes, were all
‘suddenly engulphed in the waves on the night of the battle under
‘sach circumstances as showed that the catastrophe was caused by
colossal cuttle-fishes, and not by a gale or any ordinary casualty.
Unfortunately for De Montfort the inexorable logic of facts not
‘only annihilates his startling theory, but demonstrates the reckless
falsity of his plausible statements. The captured vessels did not
sink on the night of the action, but were all sent to Jamaica to
refit, and arrived there safely. Five months afterwards, however,
a convoy of nine line-of-battle-ships (amongst which were
Rodney’s prizes), one frigate, and about a hundred merchantmen,
were dispersed, whilst on their voyage to England, by a violent
* *Flistoire Naturelle générale et particuli¢re des Mollusques,” vol. ii.
ape 250:
+ ‘* Conchyliologie Systématique.”
+ ‘* Hist. Nat. des Moll.,” vol. ii, pp. 358 to 368.
>
104 LAE OCTOPUS.
storm, during which some them unfortunately foundered. The
various accidents which preceded the loss of these vessels was
related in evidence to the Admiralty by the survivors, and official
documents prove that De Montfort’s fleet-destroying fowlpe was
unequivocally a “ devil-fish of fiction,” and that the “ devil-fish of
fact” had no part in the disaster he ascribes to it.*
* De Montfort endeavoured to support his statements by so many inaccurate
details, which by a considerable number of uneducated persons of his own
nation were accepted as true, that I think some particulars of the events above
referred to may be interesting. My information is obtained from Rodney’s
despatches, and paragraphs of contemporary naval news published in the
**Gentleman’s Magazine” of 1782 and 1783 ; from the ‘‘ Annual Register” of
1783; and from Capt. J. N. Inglefield’s own account of the loss of his ship
the ‘‘ Centaur,” in a rare pamphlet of thirty-nine pages, ‘‘ published by
authority,” and dated ‘‘ Fayall, October 13th, 1782.” }
In Sir G. B. Rodney’s action with the French fleet under the Count de
Grasse, off St. Domingo, on the 12th of April, 1782, the manceuvre of breaking
the enemy’s line, and separating some of his ships from the remainder, was for
the first time successfully put in practice. The following captures were made
by the British, viz. :—The admiral’s ship, ** Ve de Parts,” 104, which was 2
splendid present from the City of Paris to Louis XV. ; the ‘* Glorieux,” 74 ;
Ceasar,” 743°“ Hector,” 64; ** Caton,” 64; §* Faso,” ba; “ Atmabic, “2.
and ‘* Ceres,” 18; besides one ship of 74 guns, sunk during the engagement.
The ‘‘ Cesaz,” one of the best ships in the French fleet, took fire on the night
of the action, and, before the prisoners could be removed from her, blew up.
By this accident a lieutenant, the boatswain, and fifty Englishmen belonging
to the ‘‘ Centaur,” together with about four hundred Frenchmen, perished.
The remainder of the prizes were sent into Port Royal, Jamaica, to repair
amages, and on the 5th of May, 1782, Rodney wrote to the Admiralty
announcing their safe arrival in that harbour.
On the 26th of July following, a fleet and convoy, amongst which were these
ships, left Port Royal for England, under the command of Admiral Graves in
the ‘‘ Ramilies.” They encountered several very heavy gales of wind, and on
the 16th of September, in lat. 42° 15’, long. 48° 55’, a storm set in which lasted
several days. About three A.M. on the 17th, the wind, which had been blowing
from S.E., suddenly shifted, and a brief lull was succeeded by a most violent
squall, with furious rain from N.N.W., which is described as ‘‘ exceeding in
degree everything of the kind that the oldest seaman in the fleet had ever seen,
or had any conception of.” The ‘* Ramilies” went to the bottom soon after
four P.M. on the 21st. Most of her crew were saved. The ‘‘ Centaur”
foundered on the night of the 23rd, in lat. 48° 32’, long. 43° 20°. Her captain,
GIGANTIC CUTTLE-FISHES. 105,
I have been told, but cannot vouch for the truth of the report,
that De Montfort’s propensity to write that which was not true,
culminated in his committing forgery, and that he died in the
galleys. But he records a statement of Captain Jean Magnus
Dens, said to have been a respectable and veracious man, who,
after having made several voyages to China as master of a trader,
retired from a seafaring life and lived at Dunkirk. He told De
Montfort that in one of his voyages, whilst crossing from St.
Helena to Cape Negro, he was becalmed, and took advantage of
the enforced idleness of the crew to have the vessel scraped and
painted. Whilst three of his men were standing on planks slung
over the side, an enormous cuttle-fish rose from the water, and
threw one of its arms around two of the sailors, whom it tore
away, with the scaffolding on which they stood. With another
arm it seized the third man, who held on tightly to the rigging,
and screamed for help. His shipmates ran to his assistance, and
succeeded in rescuing him by cutting away the creature’s arm
Inglefield, and eleven of her people, in the pinnace, left her in a sinking state
about five o’clock on that evening, and after suffering severely for sixteen days,
in the course of which one man, Thomas Matthews, quartermaster, died from
cold and exposure, they landed at Fayall in an exhausted condition, having
made a voyage of more than 750 miles ina open boat. The ‘‘ Gloriewx” and
the ‘* Ville d2 Paris” also sank during the gale, and only one man of the crew
of the latter vessel was saved, having been picked up on some floating wreck.
His name was John Wilson, and he gave evidence at Portsmouth concerning
the disaster on the 22nd of March, 1783. The ‘‘ Caton,” ‘Canada,’
** Ardent,” and ‘* Faso” escaped with loss of spars and other damage. The
‘* Hector” was*attacked by two French frigates, left by them in a crippled
condition, and sank—many of the crew being saved by the ‘*‘ Hawkesnow,”
letter of marque. These are well-attested facts. De Montfort’s fabulous
statement was, that on the night following the battle, the ‘‘ Ville de Paris”
fired minute guns and made other signals of extreme distress, and that in
consequence of this nine other men-of-war bore down to her assistance, con-
verging on her as a common focus, and were all simultaneously involved in her
mournful fate—that of being dragged beneath the yawning waves by enormous
poulpes. His pretended history, as well as his ingenious, but disingenuous
theory, was drawn from his imagination ; and the one is as false as the other is
absurd,
106 THE OCTOPUS.
with axes and knives, but he died delirious on the following night.
The captain tried to save the other two sailors by killing the
animal, and drove several harpoons into it; but they broke away,
and the men were carried down by the monster. The arm cut off
was said to have been 25 feet long, and as thick as the mizenyard,
and to have had on it suckers as big as saucepan-lids. I believe
the old sea-captain’s narrative of the incident to be true: the
dimensions given by De Montfort are an embellishment of his own.
It is remarkable that there exists in the East a strong belief in the
power of these animals to sink a ship and devour her crew. I
have been told by a friend that he saw in a shop in China a pic-
ture of a cuttlefish embracing a junk, apparently of about 300
tons burthen, and helping itself to the sailors, as one picks
gooseberries off a bush. Mr. Laurence Oliphant, in his ‘ China
and Japan,” describes a Japanese show, which consisted of “a
series of groups of figures carved in wood, the size of life, and as
cleverly coloured as Madame Tussaud’s wax-works. One of these
was a group of women bathing in the sea. One of them had
been caught in the folds of a cuttle-fish ; the others, in alarm,
were escaping, leaving their companion to her fate. The cuttle-
fish was represented on a huge scale, its eyes, eyelids, and mouth
being made to move simultaneously by a man inside the head.”
The old stories of colossal cuttle-fishes, though gross exaggera-
tions, are “founded on facts.” They are based on the rare
occurrence of specimens, smaller certainly, but still enormous, of
some known species. The means of observation on the duration
of growth and life in the cephalopods have been, of course, diffi-
cult to obtain; but, from watching the rate of increase of size in
young specimens, De Ferussac, D’Orbigny, and other naturalists
have arrived at the conclusion that they sometimes live for many
years, and continue to grow till the end of their lives. ‘That some
of them, therefore, should attain to a considerable magnitude is
hardly surprising.
Passing over the earlier records of the appearance of cuttle-
GIGANTIC CUTTLE-FISHES. 107
fishes of unusual size, and the current as well as traditional
belief in their existence by the inhabitants of many countries, let
us take the testimony of travellers and naturalists, who have a
right to be regarded as competent observers.
Peron,* the well-known French zoologist, mentions having seen
at sea, in 1801, not far from Van Diemen’s Land, at a very little
distance from his ship, “ Ze Géographe,” a sepia (calamary?) of
the size. of a barrel, rolling with noise on the waves ; its arms,
between 6 and 7 feet long, and 6 or 7 inches in diameter at
the base, extended on the surface, and writhing about like great
snakes.
Quoy and Gaimard7 report that in the Atlantic Ocean, near the
equator, they found the remains of an enormous calamary, half-
eaten by the sharks and birds, which could not have weighed
less, when entire, than 2oolbs.
Captain Sander Rang { records having fallen in with, in mid-
ocean, a species distinct from the others, of a dark red colour,
having short arms, and a body the size of a hogshead.
Molina, in his “ Natural History of Chili,” describes, amongst
other species of cuttlefishes, one, which he calls Sepca tunicata, and
of which he says some specimens, armed with hooks in their
suckers, weighed r5olbs.
Although, in the face of recent discoveries, it is now com-
paratively unimportant, I may here mention that Schneider,§ a
most able and scrupulously careful naturalist, finding that, in many
instances, Molina was utterly unworthy of confidence, plainly
declared that it was necessary to search in the works of others
for description of the species of which he wrote, and expressed
doubts of the correctness of his assertions concerning the hook-
furnished cuttle-fish on the coast of Chili. He could not discover
* “Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres australes.”
+ ‘* Voyage de l’Uranie : Zoologie:” vol. i., part 2, p. 411. 1824.
~ ‘‘ Manuel des Mollusques,” p. 86.
§ ‘‘Bemerk, Uber die Gattung der Dintenfisch, etc.,” 1793.
108 Ti VOCTORGS:
the source whence Molina had derived his information on this.
subject, but M. de Ferussac * found that he had taken it from a
translation of the narrative of Captain Cook’s first voyage, and
had dishonestly transferred to Chili a specimen (to which I shall
presently refer), described by Sir Joseph Banks as captured in the
South Seas, and which is now in the museum of the Royal College
of Surgeons. De Montfort quoted Molina, and, with his usual
love of exaggeration, greatly embellished his description. Shaw
reproduced De Montfort’s figure, and Leach and Lesueur accepted
Molina’s statements.t
In a manuscript by Paulsen, referred to by Professor Steenstrup,
of Copenhagen, is a description of a large calamary cast ashore
on the Danish coast, which the latter named Aschiteuthis monachus.
Its body measured 21 feet, and its tentacles 18 feet, making a total
of 39 feet.
In 1854 another was stranded at the Skag in Jutland, which
Professor Steenstrup believed to belong to the same genus as the
preceding, but to be of a different species, and called it Archi-
teuthis dux. The body was cut in pieces by the fishermen, and
furnished many wheelbarrow-loads. Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys says
* “Note sur la Seiche a six pattes, Sepia hexopodia de Molina, et sur deux
autres especes de Seiches signalées par cet auteur.”
++ De Ferussac severely denounces Molina’s lack of truthfulness, and ad-
ministers a rebuke which may be useful to some writers of the present day.
Whilst avoiding the imputation of wilful repetition and propagation of false-
hood, he gravely censures the acceptance of error as truth. He says :—‘‘ This
suggests sad reflections on the amplifications, reticences, and fantastic inven-
tions of some savazs, and on the absence of scrutiny apparent in some scientific
works. It should serve to prove, more and more, the necessity of careful
examination before accepting or rejecting doubtful species, although it is more
convenient to accept statements as they are found, without taking the trouble
to verify them by proper research. We know very well that the majority of
naturalists, with the exception of a small number of especially pains-taking
men, are unaware of the negligence, the double use of incidents, and the
repetition of innumerable errors to which those who are content thus to work
expose themselves.”
t ‘* British Conchology,” vol. v., p. 124.
GIGANTIC CULTLE-FISHES. Log
Dr. Morch informed him that the beak of this animal was nine
inches long. He adds that another huge cephalopod was
stranded in 1860 or 1861, between Hillswick and Scalloway, on
the west of Shetland. From a communication received by Pro-
fessor Allman, it appears that its tentacles were 16 feet long, the
pedal arms about half that length, and the mantle sac 7 feet. The
largest suckers examined by Professor Allman were three-quarters
of an inch in diameter.
We have also the statement of the officers and crew of the
French despatch steamer, ‘““4/ecton,” commanded by Lieutenant
Bouyer, describing their having met with a great calamary on the
30th of November, 1861, between Madeira and Teneriffe. ‘They
say that the body of the creature, which, like Rang’s specimen,
was of a deep red colour, measured 16 feet to 18 feet in length, with-
out reckoning that of the formidable arms. ‘The harpoons thrust
into it drew out of its soft flesh; so they slipped a rope with a running
knot over it, which held at the juncture of the fins ; but when they
attempted to haul it on board, the enormous weight caused the
rope to cut through the flesh, and all but the hinder part of the
body fell back into the sea and disappeared. M. Berthelot, the
French Consul at Teneriffe, saw the fins and posterior portion of
the animal on board the “47Zecton” two days afterwards, and sent
a report of the occurrence to the Paris Academy of Sciences.*
These are statements made by men who, by their intelligence,
character, and position, are entitled to respect and credence, and
whose evidence would be accepted without question or hesitation
in any court of law. There is, moreover, a remarkable coincidence
of particulars in their several accounts, which gives great im-
portance to their combined testimony. The public, after being
deceived by Pliny with his rapacious colossal polypus, and by
* In the illustration of this occurrence given in M. Louis Figuier’s book,
“*La Vie et les Mceurs des Animaux,” and the English translations of it, the
size of the calamary is so exaggerated that undeserved discredit has been
brought by it on the narrators of the incident.
110 SHE, OCTOPUS:
Olaus Magnus, Pontoppidan and De Montfort with their fabulous.
or grossly exaggerated “ Kraken,” leaped hastily across the path
of truth from easy gullibility on the one hand to unreasoning
incredulity on the other. “ Jy medio tutissimus ibis” is a rule
which may be safely applied to this case, as to many others. The
accumulated weight of such aggregate testimony as had been
adduced should, even if unsupported by confirmatory facts, have
been sufficient to convince any thoughtful inquirer of the existence
of very large cephalopods, individuals of which have occasionally
been seen, and correctly described by some trustworthy observers,
although absurdly exaggerated and misrepresented by others.
But fortunately, we are not left dependent on documentary
evidence alone, nor with the option of accepting or rejecting, as
caprice or prejudice may prompt us, the narratives of those who
have told us they have seen what we have not. Cuttle-fishes of
extraordinary size are preserved in several European museums.
In the collection of the Faculty of Sciences at Montpellier is one
six feet long, taken by fishermen at Cette, which Professor Steen-
strup has identified as Ommastrephes pteropus. One of the same
species, which was formerly in the possession of M. Eschricht,
who received it from Marseilles, may be seen in the museum at
Copenhagen. -The body of another, analogous to these, is exhi-
bited in the museum of Trieste. It was taken on the coast of
Dalmatia. At the meeting of the British Association at Plymouth
in 1841, Colonel Smith exhibited drawings of the beak and other
parts of a very large calamary preserved at Haarlem; and M. P.
Harting, in 1860, described in the Memoirs of the Royal Scientific
Academy of Amsterdam portions of two extant in other collections
in Holland, one of which he believes to be Steenstrup’s Architeuthis
dux, a species which he regards as identical with Ommastrephes
todarus of D’Orbigny. Dr. J. E. Gray scientifically described,
many years ago, in his “Spicilegia Zoologica,” a specimen of
Sepioteuthis major from the Cape of Good Hope, the body of
which measured 27 inches, the head 6 inches, and the fins and
GIGANTIC CUTTLE-FISHES. IiE
body 7 inches each in breadth, and mentions one seen by Mrs,
Graham, which had arms 28 feet long.
In the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons are portions
of an Onychoteuthis or Enoploteuthis (a squid, the suckers of which
are furnished with prehensile hooks), found floating by Drs. Banks
and Solander between Cape Horn and the Polynesian Islands,
and described as having been 6 feet in length, including the
tentacular arms.* The lower portion of the body, with the fins
attached, in a dried and shrunken condition, is 18 inches long ;
the beak, 34 inches. A part of one of its arms, with the hooked
suckers, is also to be seen, which, however, being only the tip of
one, gives no clue to its entire length.
Still there remained a residuum of doubt in the minds of
naturalists and the public concerning the existence of gigantic
cuttle-fishes until, towards the close of the year 1873, two spe-
cimens were encountered on the coast of Newfoundland, and a
portion of one and the whole of the other were brought ashore
and preserved for examination by competent zoologists.
The circumstances under which the first was seen, as sensation-
ally described by the Rev. M. Harvey, Presbyterian minister of
St. John’s, Newfoundland, in a letter to Principal Dawson, of
McGill College, were, briefly and soberly, as follows :—Two fisher.
men were out in a small punt on the 26th of October, 1873, near
the eastern end of Belle Isle, Conception Bay, about nine miles
from St. John’s. Observing some object floating on the water at a
short distance they rowed towards it, supposing it to be the aris of
a wreck. On reaching it one of the men struck it with his “ gaff”
when immediately it showed signs of life, and shot out its two
tentacular arms, as if to seize its antagonists. One of the men
severed both arms with an axe as they lay on the gunwale of the
boat, whereupon the animal moved off, and ejected a quantity of
inky fluid which darkened the surrounding water for a consider-
able distarice.
* This is the specimen described by Molina.
112 PH OCTUPES.
The men went home and magnified their adventure. They
“‘ estimated” the body to have been 60 feet in length and 1o feet
across the tail fin; and declared that when the “fish” attacked
them “it reared a parrot-like beak which was as big as a six-
gallon keg.”
All this Mr. Harvey appears to have been willing to believe,
and relates without the expression of a doubt. Fortunately, he
was able to obtain from the fishermen a portion of one of the
tentacular arms which they had chopped off with the axe, and it is
mow in the St. John’s Museum. By careful calculation of its
girth, the breadth and circumference of the expanded sucker-
bearing portion at its extremity, and the diameter of the suckers,
Professor Verrill, of Yale College, has computed its dimensions as
follows :—Length of body 1o feet; diameter of body 2 feet 5
inches. Long tentacular arms 32 feet; head 2 feet—total length
about 44 feet. The upper mandible of the beak, instead of being
“Cas large as a six-gallon keg” would be about 3 inches long, and
the lower mandible 13 inch long. From the size of the large
suckers relatively to those of another specimen to be presently
described, he regards it as probable that this individual was a
female.
In November, 1874,—about three weeks after the occurrence in
Conception Bay—a calamary somewhat smaller than the pre-
ceding, but of the same species, also came into Mr. Harvey’s
possession. ‘Three fishermen, when hauling their herring-net in
Logie bay, about three miles from St. John’s, found the huge
animal entangled in its folds. With great difficulty they succeeded
in despatching it and bringing it ashore, being compelled to cut
off its head before they could get it into their boat.
The body of this specimen was over 7 feet long ; the caudal fin
22 inches broad ; the two long tentacular arms 24 feet in length ;
the eight shorter arms each 6 feet long, the largest of the latter
being ro inches in circumference at the base; total length of this
calamary 32 feet. Professor Verrill considers that this and the
GIGANTTC \COPTLE-FISHES. Tre
Conception Bay squid are both referable to one species—Steen-
strup’s Architeuthis dux.
Excellent woodcuts from photographs of these two specimens
were given in the “ Field” of January 31st, 1874, and December
13th, 1873, respectively.
In the “ American Journal of Science and Arts,” of March,
1875, Professor Verrill gives particulars of several other examples
of great calamaries, varying in total length from 30 feet to 52 feet,
which have been taken in the neighbourhood of Newfoundland
since the year 1870.
The following account of the still more recent capture of a
large squid off the west coast of Ireland was given in the “ Zoolo-
gist” of June, 1875, by Sergeant Thomas O’Connor, of the Royal
Irish Constabulary :—
“On the 26th of April, 1875, a very large calamary was met
with on the north-west of Boffin Island, Connemara. The crew
of a ‘curragh’ (a boat made like the ‘coracle,’ with wooden
ribs covered with tarred canvas) observed to seaward a large
floating mass, surrounded by gulls. They pulled out to it, be- .
lieving it to be wreck, but to their astonishment found it was an
enormous cuttle-fish, lying perfectly still, as if basking on the
surface of the water. Paddling up with caution they lopped
off one of its arms. The animal immediately set out to sea,
rushing through the water at a tremendous pace. The men gave
chase, and, after a hard pull in their frail canvas craft, came up
with it, five miles out in the open Atlantic, and severed another
of its arms and the head. ‘These portions are now in the Dublin
Museum. The shorter arms measure each 8 feet in length, and
15 inches round the base: the tentacular arms are said to have
been 30 feet long. The body sank.”
Finally, there is in the basement chambers of the British
Museum (irreverently called the “ spirit vaults and bottle depart-
ment,” because fish, mollusca, &c., in spirits are there deposited)
a tall glass jar, in which is preserved a single arm of a huge
I
II4 THE OCTOPUS.
cephalopod, which, by the kindness and courtesy of the officers of
the department, I was permitted to examine and measure when I
first described it, in May, 1873. It is 9g feet long, and 10
inches in circumference at the base, tapering gradually to a fine
point. It has about 300 suckers, pedunculated, or set on tubular
footstalks, placed alternately in two rows, and having serrated,
horny rings, but no hooks ; the diameter of the largest of these
rings is half an inch; the smallest is not larger than a pin’s head.
This is one of the eight shorter, or pedal, and not one of the long,
or tentacular, arms of the calamary to which it belonged.
Judging from the proportions of known examples, I estimate the
length of the tentacles at 36 feet, and that of the body at from
11 to 12 feet: total length 48 feet. ‘The beak would probably
have been about 5 inches long from hinge socket to point. No
history relating to it has been preserved ; but Dr. Gray told me
that he believed it came from the east coast of South America.
Here, then, in our midst, and to be seen by all who wish to
inspect it, is, and has long been, a limb of a once-living cephalopod
capable of upsetting a boat, or of hauling a man out of her, or of
clutching one engaged in scraping a ship’s side, and dragging him
under water, as described by the old master-mariner, Magnus
Dens ; possessing, also, a beak powerful enough to tear him in
pieces, and crush some of his smaller bones. I confess that until I
saw and measured this enormous limb, I doubted the accuracy of
some early observations which this specimen alone would suffice
to prove worthy of confidence. The existence of gigantic cepha-
lopods is no longer an open question. I, now, more than ever,
appreciate the value of the adage :
‘*TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION.”
THE END.
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