Chapter XII 

 CURIOUS CREATURES 



The squid and its allies, the octopus and cuttlefish, 

 have long held an evil reputation. Old books — many 

 of them dating back to the last two centuries — contain 

 pictures and descriptions of huge devilfishes over- 

 whelming and capsizing ships with their tentacles. To 

 these creatures romancers have ever been prone to 

 ascribe a nature and capacity frightful in the extreme. 

 Nor are modern fictionists insensible to the fascination 

 and dread that an artful account of their exploits can 

 inspire. So they often use them in their tales as an aid 

 to excite the imagination. And these colored accounts 

 of the nature and capacity of devilfishes, though less 

 exaggerated than those of older writers, succeed in 

 fostering in the popular mind an impression wholly at 

 variance with what are the actual facts. Indeed, as a 

 consequence, they are generally conceived to be the 

 most fearful of all invertebrate animals. 



Marine naturalists give us a quite different version 

 of the activities of these creatures, and from their im- 

 passioned reports we learn that the devilfishes are not 

 so black as they are painted; moreover, it is revealed 

 that the leading trait they display in their behavior 

 toward humans is either docility or fear. 



198 



