THE DEVIL-FISH AND ITS RELATIVES. 



351 



The octopus swims backward, and it has been remarked that it changes 

 its color to a darker hue when it starts out for a swim. 



This change of hue, apparently at will, is one of the most pe- 

 culiar characteristics of the octopus. It may be considered the cha- 

 meleon of the sea. Its ordinary color when in repose is a mottled 

 brown ; but if irritated it assumes a reddish hue, approaching to purple. 

 Nature seems to have been almost superfluously careful in furnishing 

 this animal with protecting elements ; for this coloring-matter, which 

 resides between the inner and outer skin, enables it even to assume the 

 color of the ground or rocks over which it travels, so that one can 

 hardly say what color it is before it may have changed to something 

 quite different. When exhausted after a battle or a struggle to get 

 out of a trap, it turns pale, like a human being. 



Fig. 6.— Argonaut without the Shell. 



Others besides Victor Hugo's hero have had a chance to test 

 the strength of these devil-fishes. Major Newsome, R. E., when sta- 

 tioned on the east coast of Africa in 1856-'o7, undertook to bathe in a 

 pool of water left by the retiring waves. He says : " As I swam from 

 one end to the other, I was horrified at feeling something around my 

 ankle, and made for the side as speedily as I could. I thought at first 

 it was only sea-weed ; but as I landed and trod with my foot on the 

 rock, my disgust was heightened at feeling a fleshy and slippery sub- 

 stance under me. I was, I confess, alarmed ; and so apparently was 

 the beast on which I trod, for he detached himself and made for the 

 water. Some fellow -bathers came to my assistance, and he was event- 

 ually landed. ... As the grasp of an ordinar3"-sized octopus holding 

 to a rock is not less than thirty pounds, while the floating power of a 

 man is between five and six pounds, I believe if I had not kept in mid- 

 channel it would have been a life-and-death struggle between myself 

 and the beast on my ankle. In the open water I was the best man ; but 

 near the bottom or sides, which he could have reached with his arms, 

 but which I could not have reached with mine, he would certainly have 

 drowned me." 



The major was right ; he had every chance of sharing the fate of 

 the immortal Clubin. 



