THE DEVIL-FISH AND ITS RELATIVES. 353 



stalk which is attached to the rock by a cement secreted by the parent, 

 and to which each egg is separately attached, like a mass of bananas 

 on its stalk, only much more closely packed, the number being im- 

 mense ; an octojDus will produce in one laying from forty to fifty thou- 

 sand. Mr. Lee describes one that he had under observation in an 

 aquarium, which he says " would pass one of her arms beneath the 

 hanffingr bunches of her esfffs, and, dilating the membrane on each side 

 of it into a boat-shaped hollow, would gather and hold them in, as in a 

 trough or cradle. Then she would caress and gently rub them, occa- 

 sionally turning toward them the mouth of her flexible exhalent and 

 locomotor tube, which resembles the nozzle of a hose-pipe, and direct 

 upon them a jet of water." The object of the syringing process was 

 probably to free the eggs from parasites, or to prevent the growth of 

 confervse upon them. At the end of five weeks some of the eggs were 

 taken from the nest for observation under the microscope, which showed 

 that the young octopods were already alive and freely swimming within 

 the shell ; and most extraordinary was it to see that these immature 

 creatures exhibited the characteristic changes of color at that early 



Fig. 8.— Sepia officinaus and Shell. 



stage of development, flushing red apparently with anger when dis- 

 turbed. The period of incubation is about fifty days, and during all 

 that time the mother octopus brooded her eggs with the tenderest care ; 

 so that the observer almost ceased to look upon her in the light of a 

 " devil-fi.sh," and recognized that at least the maternal instinct was 

 not dependent for its development upon external beauty. 



When the young octopus emerges from the egg it is about the size 

 of a large flea, but has none of the arms developed ; these appear sim- 

 ply as "rudimentary conical excrescences, having points of hair-like 

 fineness arranged in the form of an eight-rayed coronet upon the head." 

 The amiable disposition of all female devil-fish is not perhaps equal to 

 that of the one described above ; but it is not an unusual event for 

 VOL. XIV. — 23 



