THE DEVIL-FISH OF FICTION AND OF FACT 23 



Desiring to have a better view than I had previously been able to 

 obtain of that which follows the seizure of a crab by an octopus, I 

 fastened one to a string, by which an attendant was to lower it in 

 the water close to the glass, whilst I stood watching in front. The 

 crab had hardly descended to the depth of two feet before an octo- 

 pus for which it was not intended, and which I had not observed (so 

 exactly had he assumed the hue of the surface to which he clung), 

 shot out like a rocket from one side of the tank, opened his mem- 

 branous umbrella, shut up the suspended crab within it, and darted 

 back again to the ledge of rock on which he had been lying in 

 ambush. There he held on, with the crab firmly pressed between 

 his body and the stone work. As this was not what I wished, I 

 directed my assistant to gently try to pull the bait away from him. 

 As soon as he felt the strain, he took a firm grasp of the rock with 

 all the suckers of seven of his arms, and, stretching the eighth 

 aloft, coiled it round the tautened line, the suckers actually closing 

 on the line also, as a caterpillar's foot gripes a thin twig, or a 

 cobbler's leather pad folds round his thread when he is making a 

 wax-end. It then became a game of " pull devil, pull baker," 

 and the " devil-fish " won it. Noticing several jerks on the string, 

 I thought at first they were given by the man overhead, and told 

 him not to use too much force ; but he called out, " It's not me, 

 sir, it's the octopus : I can't move him ; and he's pulling so hard 

 that, if I don't let go, he'll break the line." " Hold on, then, and 

 let him break it," I replied. Tug ! tug ! dragged the tough, strong 

 arm of the octopus ; and at the third tug the line broke, and the 

 crab was all his own. The twine was that used for mending the 

 seine net, and was therefore not particularly weak. 



Although this experiment furnished a fresh illustration of the 

 holding power of an octopus, it had not taught me exactly that 

 which I wanted to know. I wished to be underneath that 

 umbrella with the crab, or (which was decidedly preferable) to be 

 able to see what happened beneath it without getting wet. My 

 plan, therefore, was to procure the seizure of the crab against the 



