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Title: The octopus
The "devil-fish" of fiction and of fact
Author: M.D. Henry Lee
Release date: November 15, 2023 [eBook #72133]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Chapman and Hall, 1875
Credits: deaurider, John Campbell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
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THE OCTOPUS;
OR,
THE “DEVIL-FISH” OF FICTION AND
OF FACT.
[Illustration: THE OCTOPUS
(_Octopus vulgaris._)]
_AQUARIUM NOTES._
THE OCTOPUS;
OR,
THE “DEVIL-FISH” OF FICTION AND OF FACT.
BY HENRY LEE,
F.L.S., F.G.S., F.Z.S., &c.,
NATURALIST Of THE BRIGHTON AQUARIUM.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
1875.
LONDON:
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
I Dedicate this little Book
TO MY VENERABLE FRIEND,
DR. JAMES SCOTT BOWERBANK,
F.R.S., &c.,
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.
H. L.
PREFACE.
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 _Times_ 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 language comprehensible by
all.
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 “Cyclopædia of Anatomy,” and by De Ferussac 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, F.R.S., &c., 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.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION xiii
CHAPTER I.
THE OCTOPUS AND ITS RELATIVES 1
CHAPTER II.
OCTOPODS I HAVE KNOWN 7
CHAPTER III.
“THE TOILERS OF THE SEA” 12
CHAPTER IV.
THE DEVIL-FISH OF FICTION AND OF FACT 19
CHAPTER V.
THE OCTOPUS OUT OF WATER 37
CHAPTER VI.
NEW LIMBS FOR OLD ONES 49
CHAPTER VII.
SPAWNING OF THE OCTOPUS 56
CHAPTER VIII.
CUTTLES AND SQUIDS 67
CHAPTER IX.
ECONOMIC VALUE OF CUTTLE-FISHES 83
CHAPTER X.
GIGANTIC CUTTLE-FISHES 99
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FIG. PAGE
THE OCTOPUS (_Octopus vulgaris_) _Frontispiece_.
1. THE PAPER NAUTILUS (_Argonauta Argo_) 5
2. SUCKER OF THE OCTOPUS 21
3. MANDIBLES OF THE OCTOPUS 25
4. TONGUE OF THE OCTOPUS 26
5. THE OCTOPUS SWIMMING 28
6. EGGS OF THE OCTOPUS 58
7. THE COMMON CUTTLE-FISH (_Sepia officinalis_) 67
8. SEPIOLA RONDELETII 70
9. THE COMMON SQUID (_Loligo vulgaris_) 71
10. EGGS OF THE CUTTLE-FISH (_Sepia officinalis_) 73
11. SPAWN OF THE COMMON SQUID (_Loligo vulgaris_) 76
12. FAC-SIMILE OF DE MONTFORT’S “_Poulpe Colossal_” 101
INTRODUCTION.
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 celebrated naturalist of
Stageira, in Macedonia, recorded observations 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 researches, 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., “to watch their habits so closely that nothing
relating to them should remain unknown.” Aristotle thus accumulated a
multitude 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 statements
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;[1] 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 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.[2] 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 “_Les
Travailleurs de la Mer_.” Since then it has been constantly exhibited
in aquaria, and “Octopus” has become a household word.
THE OCTOPUS.
CHAPTER I.
THE OCTOPUS AND ITS RELATIVES.
It 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 of Nature.
One of the great primary groups or divisions of the Animal Kingdom
is that of the soft-bodied MOLLUSCA; 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_,[3]
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_:[4] 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_.
Of the ten-footed section of the cephalopods, there are four
“families”; two only of which exist in Britain—the Teuthidæ, and the
Sepiidæ. The Teuthidæ are the Squids, or Calamaries, represented by
the long-bodied _Loligo 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 Sepiidæ are the Cuttles; as a type of which we may
take the common “cuttle-fish,” _Sepia 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 Octopidæ, and the Argonautidæ. The first only
is found on our coasts. The British members of it are the common
Octopus, _O. vulgaris_, and the Eledone, _E. 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 Argonautidæ,
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, _N. pompilius_, from which, however, 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, _N. pompilius_,—but in
Silurian times by 34 genera, and more than 1400 species.[5]
The following diagram will help to explain the relationship of the
Octopus to the rest of the cephalopoda.
MOLLUSCA.
/----------------------—|---------------------------\
_Classes._ Cephalopoda. Pteropoda. Lamellibranchiata.
| Gasteropoda. Brachiopoda.
|
/----|---------------------------------------\
_Orders._ Dibranchiata. Tetrabranchiata.
| |
/----|-------------—\ /-------------|------------\
_Sections._ Decapoda. Octopoda. Nautilidæ. Ammonitidæ.
| | Orthoceratidæ.
| +------------------------+
| |
/----|-----------------------\ /--------—|---------—\
_Families._ Teuthidæ. Sepiidæ. Spirulidæ. Octopidæ. Argonautidæ.
| Belemnitidæ. | | |
| | | |
/--|---—\ /-----—|--—\ /----|-----\ |
_Genera._ The Squids: The Cuttles: The Octopus; |
_Loligo_, &c. _Sepia_, &c. _O. vulgaris_, &c. |
|
/-----------|-----\
The Paper Nautilus:
_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 provided 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, if necessary, 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.[6]
The male argonaut is very small,—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
membranous expansions of the two arms, 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.[7]
Instead of floating in its pleasure-boat over the sea, the 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 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.[8]
[Illustration: Fig. 1. The Paper Nautilus (_Argonauta argo_). The
membrane is shewn partially retracted and the shell exposed.]
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 _Bullæa_,
and to some land-slugs, as _Parmacella_ and _Limax_, which have an
_internal_ shell.[9]
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 papillæ 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 opportunities
of observing in captivity, was one exhibited in the Aquarium
at Boulogne in September 1867. It was the prominent subject of
conversation at the _tables d’hôte_ 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 _diablerie_, 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 like a 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 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 condescended 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,” _Scyllium stellare_. No hostility between them
and the octopus being anticipated by their attendant, 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 “companions 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
manifest. 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.[10]
It is interesting to look back to the beginning of things, to trace
the progress of our knowledge of them, and to note the development
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 Aldermaston, 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 jubilant. As the spring advanced,
facilities for procuring these animals increased. Specimens were
sent 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 apprentices with salmon,[11] 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.
Since then, the Brighton Aquarium has only once been without 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 interesting
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 accumulation 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 the octopus or _pieuvre_, 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.
CHAPTER III.
“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 1000_l._ 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 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
as a 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; 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 villainy, 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
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 imprisoned, 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 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, cray-fish, and crabs, he espied a cavern, the arched
portal of which was partly uncovered. He entered. A fine crab,
frightened 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 _pieuvre_ (octopus), or “devil-fish,” and
he had a terrible fight with the creature. It will be convenient 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, succeeded 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, Gilliatt 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 _three bank-notes of £1000 each_ (75,000 francs), and twenty
guineas in gold. He examined the belt more closely; and there, traced
in indelible lithographic ink, were the words, “_Sieur 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. Deruchette
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 overhung 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 herself 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 footsteps 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 witness 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 believing his
eyes, rushed to the harbour bell, and rang it long and violently.
Amongst those who appeared was Gilliatt, who, accompanying him to
his home, laid before him the bank-notes and 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 gratitude. 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 _pieuvre_ 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
leather, tough as steel, cold as night;” the issuing of a second from
the crevice, “like a tongue from out a mouth,” and the successive
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
instantaneous 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 accordance with possibility, for I have tested it with a living
octopus on my own arm. This will be easily understood by anyone who
has watched the movements of the entomostracous parasites of fishes.
The so-called river-louse, _Argulus foliaceus_, which infests all
freshwater fishes, can run over their scales without loosening the
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 flesh
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 specimens 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 cupping-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.
[Illustration: Fig. 2. Sucker of the Octopus. (_O. vulgaris_).]
The cups themselves, by their internal mechanism for air exhaustion,
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 an octopus I have allowed it to fix its suckers 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 Cephalopods the outer
circle of the cups is a horny ring, sharply serrated or dentated
around its edge; and in others—for instance, _Onychoteuthis_—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 have, in addition to the
eight corresponding limbs, two long tentacular arms, which, in some
genera, are marvellous in the perfection 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 hindrance, 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
relaxation 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.[12]
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
octopus 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 membranous 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 front glass, instead of
against the rock-work. 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
withdrawn 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. In a second the crab was completely pinioned. Not a
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 repulsiveness 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 _pieuvre_ one must have seen
it. Compared to it the ancient hydras were insignificant. Orpheus,
Homer, and Hesiod imagined only the chimæra:—Providence created
the devil-fish. If terror was the object of its creation, it is
perfection.
“The ‘pieuvre’ has _no 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, _no beak_, no
teeth.... It has no bones, _no blood_, _no flesh_. It is soft and
flabby. _It is an 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._”
[Illustration: Fig. 3. Mandibles of Octopus. (_O. vulgaris_).]
So says the novelist. The naturalist knows that it has a complete
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
_fasciculi_ of muscular fibres converge from the circumference 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 or turtle, except that the lower mandible is the longest and
overlaps the upper, and are 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, and organs of hearing and
taste, besides those which are apparent on its exterior, namely,
of sight and touch. Instead of having “no blood,” it is furnished
with a complete circulatory 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-like 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
alimentary canal, œsophagus, crop, gizzard, stomach, and 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.
[Illustration: Fig. 4. Tongue of the Octopus (_O. vulgaris_).
Magnified 12 diameters.]
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,
_which is the head_, pushes through the water, and advances with an
undulating movement.”
That which M. Hugo supposes to be the head is the body of the
animal. He appears to have received this impression from Pliny,[13]
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 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 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.
[Illustration: Fig. 5. The Octopus swimming.]
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
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. Athenæus 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;”
and Ion the tragedian, who wrote in his “Phœnix”:—
“I hate the colour-changing polypus
Clinging with bloodless feelers to the rocks.”
It was also the subject of a maxim equivalent to our “When you’re 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’Orbigny mentions it, and
Mr. Darwin says, “I observed that one which I kept in the cabin
was slightly phosphorescent in the dark.”[14] 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, bound and helpless, you feel yourself
slowly emptied into this frightful sac, which is a 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 Gilliatt. 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 larvæ, 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 amphibiæ 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 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 pondering 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 sufficient
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 metres 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 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 stone-work 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
creatures, 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 endeavours
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 dimensions 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 Brobdingnagian 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 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 is 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,
unfortunately, a fact too well attested. In August, 1867, the _Genoa
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 occurrence 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.”
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 900 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 practice 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
practicable, 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 9 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 seaweed;
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, apparently, 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 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 lb., 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 40 lb. to 50 lb. 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 simultaneously; 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.
Until 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[15] 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 Ægean, 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 depôts on the shore; and adds
that the head of it, when it was at last killed, was found to weigh
700lb. Ælian 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 proceedings of an octopus in the Brighton Aquarium
we may recognise the living 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 (_Cyclopterus
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 was a puzzle! One by one they were lost to sight, as
regularly and unaccountably as pair after pair of Lieutenant 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. 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.[16]
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 incursions 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. He seemed to know that he
was watched; 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 neighbours, 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 crustaceans—he would soon have
depopulated it, by clutching in his hateful embrace more victims _per
diem_ 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 surprised 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 advantage 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 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 observing. 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 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 disengage 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 projecting 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 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 _lifting 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 _whilst the animal
was endeavouring to get it into position 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 allowed 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.
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, considerable 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!” exclaimed
the purchaser, “I could kill it in half the time, by crushing 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:—
“I 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 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 wandering 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 seaweed
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, descriptive 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 (_Holothuria
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,
though the circumstances made such an impression that I have often
thought the matter over, and sought in books for confirmation of what
I witnessed, but without success.”
A similar instance was related in a letter to one of the morning
papers (I think, the _Daily Telegraph_), about eight months
previously; 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 _Philoxenis_ 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 cephalopoda, are able, by the
disposition of their arms, to walk, or progress, 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 being reserved for seizing. I should think the rate
at which both animals went was as fast as a man could possibly walk,
_i.e._, 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.
It 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 _hectocotylus_
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.[17]
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 sometimes 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 (_Ophiocoma_),—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 (_Palinurus_), 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 cray-fish for dissection and microscopical 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 outgrowth 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 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 pavement, 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 following him. His cousin the cuttle-fish
(_Sepia_) 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 “_fons et 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 elsewhere 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 obtaining nutriment from his paws by
sucking them during his hibernation.
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 forc’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 cephalopod 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.
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 repeatedly 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 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 injured
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
periodically 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.”
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 in
water or sand. This cleansing process has been erroneously supposed
to indicate sexual excitement.
CHAPTER VII.
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 coiling 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,” like 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 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.
[Illustration: Fig. 6. Eggs of the Octopus. (_O. vulgaris_)]
The eggs of the octopus, when first laid, are small, oval,
translucent 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 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
brooding 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 appearance.
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. I believe that the object of the
syringing process is to free the eggs from parasitic animalcules,
and possibly to prevent the growth of 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 mænas_) were daily tossed into it. Although she so seldom
left her nest, she generally obtained her share of these, and would
seize with her suckers, and draw towards her, sometimes, 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 _débris_ 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 _breathes_
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 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 removing 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 disturbing 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 pugnacious. 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 _Clubin_, or to escape only after a terrible combat, like
_Gilliatt_, 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 (_Sepia_ and _Loligo_) 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 unremitting 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 everything
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 instrument, 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 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 rock-work,
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 inspection, 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 10th of August:
the eggs had been extruded on the 19th, 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
satisfactorily 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 fertilisation of the ova had been effected. But although
the parent, in 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 salmonidæ. 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 I 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 character 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 expanded 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 discernible.
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 purpose, 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 serpulæ, &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 _sepia_, 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 water
from the out-flow pipe of the syphon. This contrast of its habits in
youth and age is so remarkable that when, after witnessing 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
octopidæ 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 longitudinal 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,[18] 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.
The habits of the Eledone, of which there is only one British
species, _E. 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 immediately
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 egg 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 incessant
attention to her charge, also indicates that, during the intervening
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 VIII.
CUTTLES AND SQUIDS.
[Illustration: Fig. 7. The common Cuttle-fish (_Sepia officinalis_),
and its internal shell or “sepiostaire.”]
The common cuttle-fish (_Sepia officinalis_), (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
the open sea. Its predatory acts are not those of a concealed 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 motionless on
his horse, and scanning from some elevated knoll a wide expanse of
prairie, in readiness to swoop upon a weak or unarmed 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 occasionally 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, is its
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”[19] 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 unsaleable by tearing them with their beaks as they hang in the
meshes.
The _Sepia_ 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
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 is near. An enemy appears: the
creature ejects its ink,[20] 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 _Sepia_ which I
dissected at the Brighton Aquarium, July 3, 1875:—
Diameter of body across the back and lateral fins 9½ in.
Length of body, including marginal fin 12 ”
” head 3½ ”
” tentacles 21 ”
” shorter arms 6 ”
” sepiostaire, or “bone” 10¼ ”
Specimens of another of the Sepiidæ, the diminutive _Sepiola_ (_S.
Rondeletii_)—a veritable Liliputian among cuttles—are sometimes
caught in shrimp-nets, and brought to the Aquarium. The mantle-sac
enclosing the body of this little Tom Thumb cephalopod 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. _Sepiola_, like its
comparatively Brobdingnagian relatives, has the faculty of rapidly
changing colour, and, if angered or alarmed, its hue is almost
instantaneously altered 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 corrupt, and generate
poisonous sulphuretted hydrogen, the bottom of these receptacles is
usually covered with fine shingle. It is most interesting to notice
how, in obeying its burrowing propensity, the _Sepiola_ adapts itself
to its circumstances, and entirely deviates 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.
[Illustration: Fig. 8. Sepiola Rondeletii.]
Now and again specimens of the “little squid” (_Loligo 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 manœuvres. 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 _La Trenise_. Three
of them ranged themselves side by side, and advanced towards, and
retired from a solitary one, who, for some reason, was not received
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.
[Illustration: Fig. 9. The common Squid (_Loligo vulgaris_) and its
internal horny shell, or “pen.”]
These “little squids” are impudently voracious. I have seen 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 _Loligo_ as a good substitute 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 (_Loligo vulgaris_) is sometimes met with by the
trawlers off Brighton, and brought to the Aquarium in considerable
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, 21½ 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 10 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, _gladius_, 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
species to which I have referred in another chapter, as being one of
the staple baits used in the cod-fishery of that country.[21]
[Illustration: Fig. 10. Eggs of the common Cuttle-fish (_Sepia
officinalis_).]
The eggs of the various families of cephalopods differ greatly from
each other. Those of the Cuttle (_Sepia_) 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 of
splicing the loop, she brings the end round to the 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 _Sepia_ fastens her eggs, near land, upon
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 _incubation_ 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 frequently 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 _Sepia_ 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 in a tank, after having been for about ten
days deprived of maternal care.
The young _Sepia_ when born is much larger than a baby octopus
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
_Sepia_ and _Loligo_ are not cave-dwellers, but frequent the open
sea, and often approach the surface.
[Illustration: Fig. 11. Spawn of the common Squid (_Loligo
vulgaris_).]
The spawn of the squid (_Loligo 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
History at Prague,[22] 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 in the
specimen which was the subject of my investigation there were 42,000
perfect young squids. It is evident that comparatively 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 habits of the calamaries
render it probable that they are left floating 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 purpose of propelling the
creature away from the danger, and discolouring 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 need to conceal itself, and therefore does not
unnecessarily eject its cloudy fluid; but I have never dissected
an octopus, no matter how long it might have lived in confinement,
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 (_Sepia_) discharges it on the slightest provocation; and
this is sometimes very troublesome and annoying when this species is
exhibited in an aquarium. 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 _Sepia_ 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 _Sepia_ 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 _Sepiidæ_, _Calamaries_,
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 as doubtful whether this is an intentional act,
or whether it is accidental, and consequent on 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 _Loliginæ_ 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” (_Loligo media_),
if 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 accurately
as the “Archer-fish” (_Toxotes 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 _jet d’eau_ full in his face, exclaimed
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 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
_can_ 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
fool. 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 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 lightly 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, without 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 IX.
ECONOMIC VALUE OF CUTTLE-FISHES.
I will 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 food supply of the population; and,
in others, the means by which fishes more valuable than themselves
are obtained, and become marketable 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 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.[23] The Indians of North-Western America
look upon them as the proverbial alderman regards turtle, and devour
them with the same gusto and relish; 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 important trade in them. Professor
Edward Forbes[24] 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 Ægean, 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 Ægean 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
excellence. When well beaten, to render the flesh tender, before
being dressed, and then cut up into morsels and served in a savoury
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 fishermen 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.[25] 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.
To many persons who have not, like the Greeks, been accustomed 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.
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 memorable
“octopus-lunch” given by my friend Sir John Cordy Burrows at
Brighton, in 1874.
His cook had never before prepared an octopus, and was, probably,
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 minutes I
tried to masticate a mouthful of it, but it was useless; 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. We were! I afterwards saw this
little private experiment seriously described in a newspaper
paragraph, which was extensively quoted, as an endeavour to introduce
to the public a new and valuable article of marketable food.
In my opinion, the squid, or sleeve (_Loligo_), 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 it a name. At the nuptial feast of Iphicrates, who
married the daughter of Cotys, King of Thrace, a hundred polypi and
sepiæ were served. The Greek epicures prized them most when they
contained “roe,” and had them cooked with highly seasoned sauces. The
Lacedæmonians 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 Athenæus are numerous quotations from
older writers relating to the use, as food, of the various kinds of
cuttle-fishes. Athenæus, 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 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 pains-taking 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 _gourmets_ 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 _menu_ as are salmon and turbot at similar gatherings
now. In the following extracts from the notebook of Athenæus, by the
“polypus” is meant the _Octopus_, by the “cuttle-fish” the _Sepia_,
and by the “squid” or “squill,” the genus represented by our _Loligo_.
Plato, the comic poet, mentioning in his “Phaon” the banquet of
Philoxenus the Leucadian, says:—
“Good-sized _polypus_ 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.”
Alexis, in his “Pseudypobolemæus,” writes:—
Take the stiff feelers of the _polypus_,
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 _polypus_,
And fry the _roe_, and give it us to eat.
But to fry octopus was not, by some, considered good cooking.
Nicostratus of Philetærus 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
Epicharmus tells us in “The Sirens:”—
In the morning early, at the break of day,
We roasted plump anchovies,
Cutlets of well-fed pork and _polypi_;
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
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 mentioned:—
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 “Melibœa:”—
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.
Athenæus 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.
Cuttle-fishes are employed as bait by fishermen, and, by their
abundance at certain seasons in the neighbourhood of Newfoundland,
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 Newfoundland
merchant, who distinguished himself by being the first European who
succeeded in crossing Newfoundland—communicated 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
depôts 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 Newfoundland, as the agent of a Poole firm.
He writes:—
“My friend Mr. E——, who has spent some years in Newfoundland, 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 fishermen go out in punts squid-jigging of an evening,
to catch the bait required for the next day’s fishing. About 100 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 fishermen hollo and
shout, and make a great noise; for what purpose 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. E—— 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 from 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.[26]
The Greek fishermen use, as a “jigger,” the bone of the _Sepia_
surrounded with hooks, believing it to be more attractive than the
leaden weight above described.
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 _sleves_ 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 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.[27]
They are also frequently taken by spearing, as described by Edward
Forbes; and my friend, Mr. Henry Woodward, F.R.S., mentions[28]
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 calcareous, 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
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 “_Spicilegia Zoologica_,” published 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 _Sepia_, sometimes called
“sea-biscuit,” from its shape and its being frequently found floating
on the surface of the water, is used, when pounded, as polishing
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 regarded as the very best
dentifrice,[29] 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 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 perquisite.
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 cephalopoda; and it is well
known that fossil cuttle-fishes have been found with the ink-bag
perfect, and that from its contents excellent “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. Buckland 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.
CHAPTER X.
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,[30] which, at Carteia, in
Grenada, used to come out of the sea at night, and carry off salted
tunnies from the curing depôts on the shore, and also to the incident
recorded by Ælian,[31] who describes his monster as crushing up the
barrels of salt-fish in its arms, to get at the contents. In the
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[32] 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 is
constantly misquoted by authors who have never read his work,[33]
and who, one after another, have copied from their predecessors
erroneous statements concerning him. More than half a century before
him Christian Francis Paullinus,[34] 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
manœuvre 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.
[Illustration: Fig. 12.—Facsimile of De Montfort’s “_Poulpe
colossal_.”]
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 existence of the Kraken,
but also of another gigantic animal distinct from it; a “colossal
_poulpe_,” or octopus, compared with which Pliny’s was a mere pigmy.
In a drawing fitter to decorate the outside of a showman’s caravan
at a fair than seriously to illustrate a work on natural history,[35]
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,[36] 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[37] 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 such
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 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 _poulpe_ was unequivocally a “devil-fish
of fiction,” and that the “devil-fish of fact” had no part in the
disaster he ascribes to it.[38]
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 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 picture of a
cuttle-fish 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
exaggerations, 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, difficult
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-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,[39] 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, “_Le 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 Gaimard[40] 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 200lbs.
Captain Sander Rang[41] 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 cuttle-fishes, one, which he calls _Sepia tunicata_, and
of which he says some specimens, armed with hooks in their suckers,
weighed 150lbs.
Although, in the face of recent discoveries, it is now comparatively
unimportant, I may here mention that Schneider,[42] 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 the source whence Molina had derived
his information on this subject, but M. de Ferussac[43] 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.[44]
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 _Architeuthis 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 _Architeuthis
dux_. The body was cut in pieces by the fishermen, and furnished
many wheelbarrow-loads. Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys[45] says Dr. Mörch
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 Professor 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, “_Alecton_,” 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, without 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 “_Alecton_”
two days afterwards, and sent a report of the occurrence to the Paris
Academy of Sciences.[46]
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
importance to their combined testimony. The public, after being
deceived by Pliny with his rapacious colossal polypus, and by 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. “_In 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 Steenstrup 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 exhibited 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 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.[47]
The lower portion of the body, with the fins attached, in a dried and
shrunken condition, is 18 inches long; the beak, 3½ 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 specimens 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 sensationally
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 fishermen 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 _débris_ 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 considerable distance.
The men went home and magnified their adventure. They “estimated”
the body to have been 60 feet in length and 10 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 now 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
10 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 “as large as a six-gallon keg” would be
about 3 inches long, and the lower mandible 1½ 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 preceding, 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 10 inches in circumference at the base; total length of this
calamary 32 feet. Professor Verrill considers that this and the
Conception Bay squid are both referable to one species—Steenstrup’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 “Zoologist”
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, believing 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 department,”
because fish, mollusca, &c., in spirits are there deposited) a
tall glass jar, in which is preserved a single arm of a huge
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 9 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 cephalopods is no longer an
open question. I, now, more than ever, appreciate the value of the
adage:
“TRUTH IS STRANGER THAN FICTION.”
THE END.
BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 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.
[2] See page 49.
[3] From the Greek words _cephale_, the head; and _poda_, feet.
[4] From _octo_, eight; and _pous_ (_poda_), feet.
[5] See an interesting article on the fossil and recent cephalopoda,
by Henry Woodward, F.R.S., in the _Student_, Nos. xix. and xxii.
[6] 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.
[7] Charlesworth’s _Magazine of Natural History_, Sept. 1837; p. 393.
[8] See page 27.
[9] H. Woodward; op. cit.
[10] “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.
[11] 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 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.
[12] See page 44.
[13] “Naturalis Historiæ,” lib. ix., cap. 29.
[14] Voyage of the _Beagle_; p. 8.
[15] “Travels in Lycia.”
[16] A few days after the publication in _Land and Water_ of my
account of this occurrence, the following lines appeared in _Fun_.
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:—
THE STRAYING ’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.
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.
[17] 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 reproducing
with great facility and rapidity their arms which are exposed to so
many enemies, the Decapoda—(the Sepiidæ 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.]
[18] Several specimens of the hectocotylus in this condition may be
seen in the Museum of Natural History, Paris.
[19] 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, ‘_cuttaff_,’ or
‘_cuddyo_,’ all signifying the sense of withdrawing or hiding; hence
our pet word ‘cuddle.’”
[20] See page 94.
[21] See page 93.
[22] De quibusdam animalibus marinis. 1761.
[23] 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 calculated 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. Frequently 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 a time. But the most successful manner of
securing these fish is pursued by the inhabitants of 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 development, 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 contracted 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 6_d._ to 1_s._ 3_d._ 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 25_s._ or 50_s._ per cwt. To the
cost price must be added an export duty of 5_s._ 1_d._, 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 supplying the Greek markets with polypi. In
Greece, the octopods are either sold after being pickled, at from £12
16_s._ to £15 9_s._ 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.
[24] Travels in Lycia; by Lieut. (now Admiral) A. B. Spratt, R.N.,
F.G.S., and Professor Edward Forbes, F.R.S.
[25] The special correspondent at Gibraltar of the _Daily 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 _pulpo_, 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.
[26] A gentleman engaged in the cod-fishery, and residing at Fogo,
Newfoundland, 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. It measured sixteen feet
in length. The squid used so abundantly as bait in the Newfoundland
cod-fishery is _Ommastrephes sagittatus_.
[27] 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.”
[28] “Intellectual Observer,” vol. ii., p. 164.
[29] One of the recipes for “areca-nut tooth-powder” is:—“Ground
areca-nuts, three parts; cuttle-bone, one part; flavour with cloves
or cassia.”
[30] “Naturalis Historiæ,” lib. ix., cap. 30. A.D. 77.
[31] Lib. iii., cap. 6. De anim. A.D. 220 to 250.
[32] “Historia de gentibus Septentrionalibus.” A.D. 1555. Olaus
Magnus, archdeacon, is frequently mistaken for Johan Magnus,
Archbishop of Upsala.
[33] “Natural History of Norway,” cap. 8. A.D. 1754.
[34] Born 1643; died 1712.
[35] “Histoire Naturelle générale et particulière des Mollusques,”
vol. ii., p. 256.
[36] “Conchyliologie Systématique.”
[37] “Hist. Nat. des Moll.,” vol. ii., pp. 358 to 368.
[38] 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 manœuvre
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, “_Ville de Paris_,” 104, which was a splendid present from
the City of Paris to Louis XV.; the “_Glorieux_,” 74; “_Cæsar_,”
74; “_Hector_,” 64; “_Caton_,” 64; “_Jason_,” 64; “_Aimable_,” 32;
and “_Ceres_,” 18; besides one ship of 74 guns, sunk during the
engagement. The “_Cæsar_,” 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 damages, 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, 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 in a open boat. The “_Glorieux_”
and the “_Ville de 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 “_Jason_” 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, converging 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.
[39] “Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres australes.”
[40] “Voyage de l’Uranie: Zoologie:” vol. i., part 2, p. 411. 1824.
[41] “Manuel des Mollusques,” p. 86.
[42] “Bemerk, Uber die Gattung der Dintenfisch, etc.,” 1793.
[43] “Note sur la Seiche à six pattes, _Sepia hexopodia_ de Molina,
et sur deux autres espèces de Seiches signalées par cet auteur.”
[44] De Ferussac severely denounces Molina’s lack of truthfulness,
and administers 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 inventions of some
_savants_, 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.”
[45] “British Conchology,” vol. v., p. 124.
[46] In the illustration of this occurrence given in M. Louis
Figuier’s book, “La Vie et les Mœurs 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.
[47] This is the specimen described by Molina.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Obvious typographical errors and punctuation errors have been
corrected after careful comparison with other occurrences within
the text and consultation of external sources.
Some hyphens in words have been silently removed, some added,
when a predominant preference was found in the original book.
Except for those changes noted below, all misspellings in the text,
and inconsistent or archaic usage, have been retained.
Pg viii: ‘by De Ferrussac’ replaced by ‘by De Ferussac’.
Pg 14: ‘all his villany’ replaced by ‘all his villainy’.
Pg 52: ‘his hybernation’ replaced by ‘his hibernation’.
Pg 99: ‘Cartœia, in Grenada’ replaced by ‘Carteia, in Grenada’.
Footnote [44]: ‘some _savans_’ replaced by ‘some _savants_’.
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