THE IMPENETRABLE SEA 



prise up any lid as much as an eighth of an inch. Yet 

 every one of the ten octopuses squeezed itself through. 

 They were all found in the shipping tank, free of the 

 boxes. Coates has also stated that when common octo- 

 puses with a three-foot span were sent from Florida to New 

 York enclosed in wire netting with a half-inch mesh, 

 they regularly squeezed their way out to freedom — each 

 creature passing through one of the half-inch apertures. 



The octopuses which effected their escapes in such an 

 amazing fashion were relatively small specimens of their 

 kind, but it is difficult to understand how they could 

 squeeze their two-inch bulb-like bodies, together with 

 their fleshy arms, through such thin cracks or small 

 apertures, for their organs are complex and their eyes are 

 sensitive instruments. 



There are midget octopuses only two inches in length. 

 At the other end of the size scale are the common octo- 

 puses of European and West Indian waters [Octopus 

 vulgaris) which have arms five feet in length, giving the 

 creatures a spread of more than ten feet, while the 

 monstrous octopus of the Pacific [Octopus hongkonge?isis) 

 sometimes attains a diameter of no less than thirty-two 

 feet. When two octopuses fight, their arms become 

 entangled in seemingly hopeless confusion as they strike 

 at each other with their fearsome beaks. The excitement 

 which they suffer on such occasions causes their colour 

 patterns (which are normally mottlings of brown, tan 

 and yellow) to become more vivid, while waves of red, 

 violet, blue and purple successively suffuse their bodies, 

 sometimes creating violent colour contrasts. But when the 

 creatures are crawling over sandy stretches their colours 

 fade to greyish-white or pale tan, so that their bodies 

 harmonize with their backgrounds and they become 

 practically invisible. 



There is a cephalopod which moves about in the 

 shallow water of the coral reefs of Bermuda which is 

 called the dancing octopus. Its brown body, spotted with 



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