Octopus

“ 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. ”

“ Looking down from space, we could see it as a giant octopus with a clear eye in the center of its body, arms spiraling around and into this body of violent winds around the eye—all of the monster outlined by the clouds which thrive as it feeds on heat and moisture. ”

“ The octopus resembles an ogre dwelling in its cave, conscious that its distorted shape will not bear the light, and stretching out its arms studded with suckers to grasp and draw down to its mouth any living thing that passes within its reach. The cuttle fish varies in size from the squid, beloved by gourmands who dwell on the shores of the Mediterranean, to the monster octopus who throws his arms round boats and drags them to the bottom. ”

“ It hung there, moving sluggishly as though breathing, and rudimentary tentacles projecting from one end moved in the water.
"What is it, Doctor?" asked Carnes in a voice of awe.
"It is a typical trochosphere of the giant octopus, the devil fish of Indian Ocean legend, multiplied a thousand times," he replied. "When the octopus lays its eggs, they hatch out into the larval form. The free swimming larva is known as a trochosphere, and I am positive that that is what we see; but look at the size of the thing! Man alive, if that ever developed, I can't conceive of its dimensions!" ”

“ The octopus, though a large one, had been but a mouthful for the great killer, a stimulus, merely, to her vast appetite. She journeyed now with a keener eye upon the depths. Presently the deep blue-green of the water began to change to a lighter, beryl hue, where a line of making reef came up to within some thirty feet of the surface, and caught the sun. Here, basking, lay a broad, flat, bat-like creature, with wing-fins a dozen feet [216] across, and a long whip-like tail. Its cold moveless eyes, staring upward, caught sight of the killer’s body, slowly cleaving the surface. ”

“ From the glass-bottom boat we can see all the fauna of the ocean, and, without question, the most fascinating of them all is the octopus. Timid, constantly changing color, hideous to a degree, having a peculiarly devilish expression, it is well named the Mephistopheles of the Sea, and with the bill of a parrot, the power to adapt its color to almost any rock, and to throw out a cloud of smoke or ink, it well deserves the terror it arouses. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have seen an octopus, when undisturbed, 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, gather and receive them in it as in a trough or cradle which exhibited in its general shape and outline a remarkable similarity to the shell of the argonaut, with the eggs of which octopod its own are almost identical in form and appearance. ”

“ Here were diving suits of all kinds, sets representing the interior of ships and submarines, the yards and rigging of a bark complete, but with no hull, strange devices at whose use they could only guess and in one corner the enormous intricate octopus of rubber, springs and wire which when occupied by a man, could be made to imitate so perfectly the real creature that scientists who had seen the picture in which it figured had insisted that it was a genuine octopus. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Always hungry, savage-eyed, and vicious, they know no fear of any living thing, and seizing an octopus and biting off tentacle after tentacle with their closely-set, needle-like teeth and swallowing it whole is a matter of no more moment to them than the bolting of a tender young mullet or bream. ”

“ Every schoolboy should know that octopus signifies an eight-armed or eight-footed creature, and yet in nine cases out of ten where writers of fiction and would-be teachers of fact are describing the deadly doings of the gigantic cuttle-fish they call him an octopus; whereas he is nothing of the kind, for, in addition to the eight arms which the octopus possesses, the cuttle-fish flaunts two, each of which is double the length of the eight, making him a decapod. ”

“ 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 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It stands alone, apart from all living creatures, with scarcely a point of resemblance to any of them, its nearest relations being, perhaps, the sea anemones—those lovely inhabitants of pools among rocks. Nature would seem to have created the octopus in an idle moment, in order to show how she could diverge from her regular course, and turn out a creature with a multiplicity of arms, without body or legs, and with its head in the middle of its stomach. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ FIG. 6.—ARMS OF A GREAT CUTTLE EXHIBITED IN A JAPANESE FISHMONGER'S SHOP.
[Pg 30]
The octopus, therefore, though not abundant on our own coasts, is found in every sea in the temperate zone; and in so far as that it secretes an ink with which it can render the water turbid, and has many radiating arms with which it can seize and drown a man, it possesses certain attributes of the Kraken; but we have no authentic knowledge of its ever attaining to greater dimensions than I have stated, nor does it bask on the surface of the sea. ”

“ 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 [8] opinion demanded of them a “devil-fish,” and if they were unable to exhibit one, all other attractions were disregarded. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Like many of the mollusks of which we have written the octopus is esteemed as a valuable article of food by several savage tribes as well as by some civilized people. The native of the Pacific coast catches the Octopus (Octopus punctatus) by a very ingenious method. Providing himself with a spear twelve or fourteen feet long which has four or five barbed pieces of hard wood some fourteen inches long attached to the end, he paddles his canoe to the feeding-ground of the mollusk. ”

“ We sometimes read, of gigantic octopuses being caught in such remote places as north-western America or south Australia, but the general idea of a British octopus is gathered from the horrible but harmless little bunch of fleshy tentacles, with the bulbous head, which gracefully glides through the waters of the Brighton Aquarium and flops down uncouthly on the artificial rocks. Nevertheless, there are giant octopuses in our seas, as readers of Victor Hugo's thrilling romance, "Les Travailleurs de la Mer," have learned to their groundless horror. ”

“ In marked contrast with both cuttle-fish and squid is their cousin the octopus—a creepy, crawly creature, like eight serpents in one—at once the oddest and the most fascinating creature in the entire aquarium. You will find a crowd almost always before his grotto watching his curious antics. Usually slow and deliberate in movement, he yet has capacity for a certain agility. ”

“ Presently, a pull on the line shows that the fish has taken the bait; more jerking on the part of the native; which the octopus replies to by at once throwing out a fresh arm. The jerking still continues; until the fish, dreading the escape of his prey, lets go his hold of the rocks, and wraps the whole of his body round the shell; when the native, perceiving that his line is no longer fast to the ground, gently hauls up the line, and finally deposits an immense octopus in the bottom of the canoe. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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 ”