CHAPTER IV. 



THE DEVIL-FISH OF FICTION AND OF FACT. 



Bearing in mind that the famous story of ''The Toilers 

 of the Sea " should be regarded as a romance and not as 

 a scientific treatise, I will now endeavour to compare the 

 "devil-fish" of the author with the octopus of nature, and to 

 indicate the points on which M. Hugo's representation of his 

 "monster" is either substantially correct, partly true, or entirely 

 unreal. 



His description of the seizure of Gilliatt by the pieuvre shows 

 that he was tolerably well acquainted with its habits, mode of 

 attack, and external form. The half terrifying, half disgusting 

 grasp of one of the animal's sucker-furnished arms, "supple as 

 leather, tough as steel, cold as night;" the issuing of a second 

 from the crevice, " like a tongue from out a mouth," and the suc- 

 cessive appHcation of a third, fourth, and fifth, to various parts of 

 his body, whilst the other three retained firm hold of the rock, is 

 powerfully, and, so far, correctly, depicted, if highly-coloured. And, 

 although, when the octopus desires to alter the position of the 

 suckers and to change its hold, it generally effects that by an in- 

 stantaneous relaxation and renewal of the suction, by protrusion or 

 retraction of the muscular piston within each, yet the gliding of the 

 cupping discs over the surface of a man's wet skin is also in ac- 

 cordance with possibility, for I have tested it with a living octopus 

 on my own arm. This will be easily understood by anyone who 

 has watched the movements of the entomostracous parasites of 

 fishes. The %o-Q.2^^dLX\v^x-\Q\x%Q.^Argulus folia ecus, which infests all 

 freshwater fishes, can run over their scales without loosening the 



