THE DEVIL-FISH OF FICTION AND OF FACT. 33 



on the British Molkisca, who passes every winter in Italy, has 

 personally informed me that there are living in the harbour of 

 Leghorn several octopods having arms at least four feet long, 

 and as thick at their base as a man's wrist. They lie with their 

 bodies squeezed into, and hidden in, crevices in the stonework of 

 the mole and sea-Avall, two or three of their arms extended and 

 waving about in the water in readiness to seize passing prey, and 

 the others holding fast to the blocks of stone. Mr. Hanley says 

 that his son, who is a practised shore-hunter, and no coward, 

 having frequent occasion, whilst in search of shells, to climb along 

 a ledge of the rough masonry near the surface of the water, just 

 beneath which was the lurking-place of one of these great crea- 

 tures, was for some time afraid to pass the spot, in consequence 

 •of the animal's formidable appearance ; for, as he approached, it 

 would thrust one or two of its disc-studded arms out of water, and 

 •stretch them towards him in a threatening manner, in its endea- 

 vours to reach him. The Italian divers and bathers are said to 

 fear these creatures. 



My deceased friend John Keast Lord gives in his book, " The 

 Naturalist in British Columbia," some particulars of the dimen- 

 sions attained by the octopus in North-Western America. He 

 writes : — " The octopus, as seen on our own coasts (of England), 

 .although even here called a ' man-sucker ' by the fishermen, is a 

 mere Tom Thumb — a tiny dwarf— as compared with the Brobding- 

 nagian proportions he attains in the sunny bays and long inland 

 canals of Vancouver's Island, as well as on the mainland. These 

 places afford lurking-dens, strongholds, and natural sea-nurseries, 

 where the octopus grows to an enormous size, fattens, and wages 

 war with insatiable ferocity on all and everything it can catch. 

 The size, of course, varies. I have seen and measured the arm 

 five feet long, and as large at the base, where it joins the central 

 disc, as my wrist." He adds that the Indians, when spearing them 

 for food, take care to keep them at a distance till they have 

 stabbed them to death ; knowing that if an octopus were once to 



