Devilfish

“ The devilfish, or octopus, frequented mostly the outside of the reef and preyed on mollusks and crustaceans, being naturally timid and inoffensive, though capable of affrighting attack when molested. They commonly took up their abode in some cavern or crevice, and lay safely ensconced in the shadow, simulating the color of their surroundings so artfully that their victims hardly ever saw them until grasped by the suckers of the many long, muscular arms. ”

“ It had a picture that portrayed the devilfish in question.”
“Oh good!” Ned Land exclaimed with a burst of laughter. “Mr. Conseil put one over on me!”
“Actually he’s right,” I said. “I’ve heard about that picture. But the subject it portrays is taken from a legend, and you know how to rate legends in matters of natural history! Besides, when it’s an issue of monsters, the human imagination always tends to run wild. People not only claimed these devilfish could drag ships under, but a certain Olaus Magnus tells of a cephalopod a mile long that looked more like an island than an animal. ”

“ The male devilfish at all times shows strong affection for the female, and when a school of males, led by one or two females, is found, if one of the latter is wounded, often the bulls refuse to leave until the cow is dead.
Captain Melsom tells me that while hunting a pair of devilfish near Ulsan he shot the female, and the male would not leave his dead consort, keeping close 209alongside and pushing his head over her body. Later he struck the male with a harpoon, but did not get fast, and even then it returned and was finally killed.
Captain Melsom about to lance a gray whale from the pram. ”

“ The gunners assert that this is quite a usual occurrence when a single gray whale is being hunted.
One of the most interesting things in the life history of the devilfish is the annual migration which occurs as regularly as the seasons. In no other large cetacean is there anything like the migrating instinct which carries the gray whales from the icy waters of the north three thousand miles to the south to seek the warm lagoons of California and Korea in which to raise their young. ”

“ The devilfish is a shore-loving species and on its annual migrations always prefers to cruise along close to the beach. When unmolested it swims about four or five miles an hour and cannot exceed nine miles even when badly frightened and doing its best to get away.
At times the whales will go in so close to the shore that they are actually rolling in the surf, and seem to enjoy being pounded by the breakers. Scammon has 205observed the same habit in the California specimens and says:
A strip of blubber from the back of a gray whale with the short flipper at the end of it. ”

“ The lance has penetrated the lungs and the whale is spouting blood.
A second specimen had a large swelling on the ventral ridge of the peduncle, which, upon being opened, proved to be a large capsular tumor about one foot in depth and of a like diameter. The skin upon the snout of a third individual was drawn into small circular patches, leaving large sections of the blubber exposed.
The entire body of the devilfish is thickly infested with “whale lice” and barnacles. ”

“ A male killer was taken at the same time by Captain Hurum, who told me that in the animal’s death flurry it had thrown up two great chunks of flesh.
Captain Melsom brought a gray whale to the station one day and I found that the tongue was almost gone. He said he had passed a school of killers in the morning and later, after steaming about fifteen miles, had killed the devilfish. A short time afterward, a long distance away, he saw the fins of a school of killers which were coming at full speed straight for the ship. ”

“ The whalemen in Korea, where the hunting is done from small steamships by the Norwegian method, do not regard the animals as especially dangerous. They seldom lance one from the pram, as is frequently done with other whales, because the devilfish seem to be very sensitive to pain and as soon as the iron penetrates the body the animal will raise itself in the water, throwing its head from side to side and sometimes lashing about with its flukes and flippers. ”

“ If one of these parasites is placed upon the hand it begins slowly to raise the body upon the front legs, driving its claws into the flesh, and in a short time will be firmly fastened and can only be removed with difficulty. The whale lice are crustaceans and have been named Cyamus scammoni after Captain Charles M. Scammon, who first discovered them upon the gray whales of California.
Besides whale lice the devilfish are the hosts of hard, shell-like barnacles known as Cryptolepas rhachianectei. These imbed themselves deeply on all parts of the body and sometimes are found in large clusters. ”

“ There is the subtle and picturesque devil fish, who hides himself in the sedge and opens his mouth like a railway tunnel. With the fishing-rod which Nature attaches to his nose, the end of which is contrived like a bait, he switches the bright water until fish run forward, when he draws it cleverly up, and the foolish, impetuous, and unobservant creatures rush down his cavernous and treacherous throat He offers a bait, not to feed them, but to feed himself. If people had only eyes to see, there are devil fish about in the sedges of daily life—political, clerical, and social. ”

“ Its tail is long and slim. As a rule they are confined to warm seas, but at least one species extends throughout the Atlantic and Pacific. [151]
The Devil-fish or Eagle Ray is a member of the family of Millstone Rays, so called because of their peculiar teeth, which are adapted to crush the shells of the mollusks on which they prey. The tail is long and slim. Some devil-fish occasionally measure from fifteen to eighteen feet across. Pearl and sponge divers greatly fear these ugly creatures.
The name devil-fish is also given to the Octopus and to the Goosefish or Angler. ”

“ The whale has enormous bulk, the devil-fish is comparatively small; the jararaca makes a hissing noise, the devil-fish is mute; the rhinoceros has a horn, the devil-fish has none; the scorpion has a dart, the devil-fish has no dart; the shark has sharp fins, the devil-fish has no fins; the vespertilio-bat has wings with [Pg 291] claws, the devil-fish has no wings; the porcupine has his spines, the devil-fish has no spines; the sword-fish has his sword, the devil-fish has none; the torpedo has its electric spark, the devil-fish has none; the toad has its poison, the devil-fish has none ”

“ Toyatte's generous friend caught a devil-fish about three feet in diameter to add to his stores of food. It would be very good, he said, when boiled in berry and colicon-oil soup. Each arm of this savage animal with its double row of button-like suction discs closed upon any object brought within reach with a grip nothing could escape. The Indians tell me that devil- fish live mostly on crabs, mussels, and clams, the shells of which they easily crunch with their strong, parrot-like beaks. ”

“ This he does by sinking beneath some unfortunate porpoise or dolphin—perhaps even a shark or a whale—and striking violent lateral blows at its belly; not spearing it with the keen, clean thrust of the sword-fish, but ripping it from side to side. In this way it tears out the entrails of its victim, and then greedily devours them as they float in the water. A more horrible thing can hardly be imagined. There is only this to be said, that the creatures thus cruelly used are as cruel themselves in pursuing and devouring their own prey—or, at least, they are as cruel as they can be. ”

“ Well might the Paumotuan in his frail fishing-canoe dread the sea-devil! He had known him rise beneath his pirogue, and with a blow of his fearful fins shatter fisherman and craft. Not vicious in pursuit of man as the shark, or lithe and able to impale his victims as the swordfish, yet more terrible when aroused by the impotent Paumotuan, the “winged devil of the deep passes” stood for all that was perilous and awesome among the beasts of the ocean. ”

“ We have already mentioned that some of the jelly-fishes possess the power of stinging. Only a few of the larger species, however, seem to be thus endowed; and the name sea-nettle is by no means applicable to the class as a whole. The poisonous fluid which produces the irritating effect on the skin, and no doubt paralyses the creatures upon which the jelly-fish feeds, is secreted by the arms. By means of its poison-bearing tentacles, the soft, gelatinous medusa is more than a match for the armed crustacean and the scale-clad fish. ”

“ Are the sea devils their cousins?" asked Trot.
"Yes; and they are the only creatures of the ocean which we greatly fear," replied Aquareine. "I hope we shall meet none to-day, for we are going near to the dismal caverns where they live."
"What are the sea devils like, ma'am?" inquired Cap'n Bill, a little uneasily.
"Something like the octopus you just saw, only much larger and of a bright scarlet color, striped with black," answered the Queen. ”

“ The crab feeds on carrion, the devil-fish on crabs. The devil-fish seizes as it passes any swimming animal—an otter, a dog, a man if it can—sucks the blood, and leaves the body at the bottom of the water. The crabs are the spider-formed scavengers of the sea. Putrefying flesh attracts them; they crowd round it, devour the body, and are in their turn consumed by the devil-fish. Dead creatures disappear in the crab, the crab disappears in the pieuvre. ”

“ That most fearful looking, but really harmless and beneficent creature, the devil’s darning-needle, or dragon-fly, libellula, is a remarkable specimen of this family. They are called demoiselles by the French, wasserjunfern, water-virgins by the Germans; but, in spite of these pretty appellations, are the tyrants of the surface of the ponds; they seize and tear to pieces all other insects, including butterflies and mosquitoes, and will clear a house of the common fly. They are cruel, rapacious and insatiable, and I do not know of their ever being used as bait for trout. ”

“ The "sea-devil," or "angler" of our coasts, has on its head three long, very flexible, reddish filaments, while all round its head are fringed appendages, closely resembling fronds of sea-weed. The fish conceals itself at the bottom, in the sand or among sea-weed, and dangles the long filaments in front of its mouth. Other little fishes, taking them for worms, unsuspectingly approach, and themselves fall victims.
Several species of the same family live at great depths, and have very similar habits. A mere red filament would, however, be invisible in the dark, and therefore useless. ”

“ Rapacious greed and inordinate desire, in respect of their influences on human mind, can be rightly compared with the dreadful and all-devouring sea-devil, as described by Victor-Hugo. This horrible animal lives in water which equals even crystals in transparency, and where stones of different colours and varieties sparkle and glow with a lustre all their own; innumerable priceless pearls and corals also illumine the beautiful habitation of this dreadful monster. It is dreadful because it sucks human blood. ”

“ The yellow devils not only menace them from the side; they come upon them from all directions. When they descend in crowds from their flight into the air, they grow stiff with terror on finding themselves face to face with great, amber eyes that seem starting out of their sockets to go greedily hunting on their own account. Then a mouth opens, shoots out a pair of concertina-like lips, and changes into a funnel; and the poor little fish disappear into a chasm, like threads into a vacuum cleaner. ”

“ The surfaces of the tentacles, and frequently of the stomach and body-walls, hold countless minute sacs containing beautifully coiled filaments, which are quickly thrown out like so many poisoned darts to pierce and paralyze the victim. The structure and action of these stinging threads is one of the greatest wonders of nature. The weak jelly-fish uses the same means to overpower its prey, which, enveloped and paralyzed by the hundreds of thread-like tentacles, is drawn upward into the digestive cavity. ”

“ Even the fishermen regard a number of these creatures as of the devil, for some of the spines, gill covers, and skins are as venomous as an adder’s fangs; and the sea serpents, those brightly colored ribbons common enough among the waves, and all as deadly as cobras, cause a surprising number of deaths to those whose business is with fish net and traps. One morning in Macassar’s fish market there was a man who seemed to have supposed that the fish he had caught was too awful or too bulky to allow him to bring in more than the head, as a trophy. ”

“ HYDROID FROM WHICH THE JELLY-FISH GROWS.
The monster when alive looks as much as anything like an immense circular plate or dish of glass floating bottom upward on the sea. The color of the body is a brownish-red, with a rather broad margin of creamy white edged with blue, while the tentacles—pink, blue, brown, and purple—hang like skeins of colored glass threads from the under parts of the shield. Very beautiful are these threads, glistening with a silky lustre beneath the waves, but they are extremely dangerous, too. ”

“ When swimming, the devil-fish rests, so to speak, in its sheath. It swims with all its parts drawn close. It may be likened to a sleeve sewn up with a closed fist within. The protuberance, which is the head, pushes the water aside and advances with a vague undulatory movement. Its two eyes, though large, are indistinct, being of the colour of the water.
When in ambush, or seeking its prey, it retires into itself, grows smaller and condenses itself. It is then scarcely distinguishable in the submarine twilight. ”