IN DEFENSE OF OCTOPUSES 305 



not begin its construction until they are a week or two old. 

 Unfortunately for the natural history of Aristotle, they do not 

 sail over the surface of the sea like miniature ships with the 

 arms held as sails as that ancient and inquiring naturalist so 

 quaintly believed, but creep and crawl along the bottom or 

 swim by means of their siphons like any other cephalopod. 

 While the eggs of the Argonauts are well protected and care- 

 fully mothered the adult has paid a reverse penalty for its ac- 

 quisition of a shell, even though that shell is not a true one. The 

 Argonauts have lost some of the intelligence and freedom of 

 other octopods, for they appear to be the most sluggish and 

 stupid of their class. 



Inagua from above the sea gives no hint of the host of octo- 

 pods that must harbor in its reefs, or of the tiny frond-colored 

 squids that shelter in the growths of sargassum weed that float 

 ceaselessly by on the currents, or of the larger and more ap- 

 palling-looking decapods that move about in small groups in 

 the open water. Nor is there much indication even to the diver 

 of their presence. Unlike the reef fishes they are mostly noc- 

 turnal. During the bright hours they lie quiescent, curled up 

 in the crevasses of their coral homes or float suspended and 

 still, in the magic manner of underwater between top and bot- 

 tom, waiting patiently with staring round eyes for the sun to 

 drop and extend vague shadows over the blue depths. Then 

 they creep from their dens and go slithering over the coral 

 boulders or swim like living arrows through the green waters, 

 pouncing on their prey and doing whatever amazing things 

 fall to the lot of cephalopods. 



Whenever I think of the great barrier reef of Inagua I think 

 always of two things; first, of the fairyland of the coral itself 

 and the pastel colors, and second, of the octopus of the drowned 

 ravine with its weird eye and rubbery body. More than any 

 other creature, the octopus is the spirit of the reef; unreal them- 



