8 THE OCTOPUS. 



opinion demanded of them a " devil-fish," and if they were unable 

 to exhibit one, all other attractions were disregarded. The new 

 octopus became "the rage." Visitors jostled each other, and 

 waited their turn to obtain a peep at him — often a tantalizing 

 exercise of patience, for the picturesque rock-work in the tanks 

 provided so many hiding places, that, until these were partially 

 filled with cement, the popular favourite only occasionally con- 

 descended to show himself. Poor fellow ! his career was short, 

 and his end sudden and shocking. During the interregnum 

 between the death of my friend John Keast Lord, and the 

 appointment of a successor to him in the curatorship, it became 

 necessary to clean out a tank in which were some " Nurse -hounds," 

 or "Larger spotted dog-fishes," Scyllmm stellarc. No hostility 

 between them and the octopus being anticipated by their attend- 

 ant, they were temporarily placed with it, and, for a while, they 

 seemed to dwell together as peaceably as the *' happy family " of 

 animals that used to be exhibited in a travelling cage at the foot 

 of Waterloo Bridge ; the octopus usually remaining within the 

 " Cottage-by-the-sea " which he had built for himself in the form 

 of a grotto of living oysters, and the dog-fish apparently taking no 

 notice of him. But one fatal day— the 7th of January, 1873 — the 

 " devil-fish " was missing, and it was seen that one of the " com- 

 panions of his soHtude " was inordinately distended. A thrill of 

 horror ran through the corridors. There was suspicion of crime 

 and dire disaster. The corpulent nurse-hound was taken into 

 custody, lynched and disembowelled, and his guilt made manix"est. 

 For there, within his capacious stomach, unmutilated and entire, 

 lay the poor octopus who had delighted thousands during the 

 Christmas holidays. It had been swallowed wholfe, and very 

 recently, but life was extinct."^ 



It is interesting to look back to the beginning of things, to trace 



* "The dear devoured one," as a local journal called it, was at once 

 immersed in methylated spirits. The dog-fish was stuffed. Both are still 

 preserved at the Aquarium. 



