THE '''SAILING" OF THE NAUTILUS. 85 



the parent. Those produced by a small octopus are 

 seldom more than about three inches long, and from 

 twelve to twenty in number ; but a full-grown female will 

 deposit from forty to fifty of such clusters, each about five 

 inches in length. I have counted the eggs of which these 

 clusters are composed, and find that there are about a 

 thousand in each : so that a large octopus produces in one 

 laying, usually extended over three days, a progeny of from 

 40,000 to 50,000. I have seen an octopus, when undisturbed, 

 pass one of her arms beneath the hanging bunches of her 

 eggs, and, dilating the membrane on each side of it into a 

 boat-shaped hollow, gather and receive them in it as in a 

 trough or cradle which exhibited in its general shape and 

 outline a remarkable similarity to the shell of the argonaut, 

 with the eggs of which octopod its own are almost identical 

 in form and ap2:)carance. Then she would caress and 

 gently rub them, occasionally turning towards them the 

 mouth of her flexible exhalent and locomotor tube, like 

 the nozzle of a fireman's hose-pipe, so as to direct upon 

 them a jet of the excurrent water. I believe that the 

 object of this syringing process is to free the eggs from 

 parasitic animalcules, and possibly to prevent the growth 

 of conferva, which, I have found, rapidly overspreads those 

 removed from her attention." * 



It has been suggested that the syringing may be for the 

 purpose of keeping the water surrounding the eggs well 

 aerated ; but this is evidently erroneous, for the water 

 ejected from the tube has been previously deprived of its 

 oxygen, and consequently of its health-giving properties, 

 whilst passing over the gills of the parent. Week after 

 week, for fifty days, a brooding octopus will continue to 

 attend to her eggs with the most watchful and assiduous 

 * ' The Octopus,' 1873, P- 57- 



