ASSAULT OF A CUTTLE. 235 



been cast loose, which was followed by a rushing sound 

 and a flapping of wings on every side, rising high into 

 mid-air : then the wild concert was taken up and repeated 

 far above us. We had come suddenly on the covert of 

 thousands of water-fowl. After this uproar the Cossacks 

 pulled out into the middle of the stream, and passed 

 quickly along through some beautiful scenery." * 



Those who are familiar with the poulpes and cuttles of 

 our coasts will readily allow that there is something more 

 than usually repulsive in their appearance. Their flabby, 

 corpse-like fleshiness, now lax and soft, now plumping up, 

 their changes of colour, the livid hue that comes and goes 

 so strangely, the long lithe arms with their cold adhesive 

 powers, their uncouth agility, their cunning adroitness 

 and intelligence, and especially the look of their ghastly 

 green eyes, make ' them decidedly " no canny." It does 

 not need that they should be sufiiciently colossal in dimen- 

 sions to throw their arms over a ship's hull and drag her 

 under water, as oriental tales pretend, and as old-fashioned 

 naturalists believed, to induce us to give them a wide 

 berth. It would not be pleasant to be entwined in the 

 embrace of those arms ; and we can sympathise with Mr 

 Beale, w^ho has described his feelings during an encounter 

 w^hich he had wdth a beastie of this sort, while engaged in 

 searchino^ for shells amono- the rocks of the Bonin Islands. 

 He was much astonished at seeing at his feet a most ex- 

 traordinary-looking animal, crawling towards the surf, 

 which it had only just left. It was creeping on its eight 



* Atkinson's Siberia, p. 228. 



