38 THE OCTOPUS. 



model of the bold, broad sketches from nature from which the old 

 artists fancifully drew their showy but untruthful pictures. 



In May, 1873, it was found that some young lump-fish {Cydop- 

 terus luvipiis^ were mysteriously disappearing from one of the 

 tanks. Almost daily there was a fresh and inexplicable vacancy 

 in the gradually diminishing family circle, and morning after 

 morning a handbill might have been issued : — '' Missing ! Lost, 

 stolen, or strayed, a young 'lump-sucker,' rather below the middle 

 size, and enormously stout ; had on a bright blue coat, with several 

 rows of buttons on it, and a waistcoat of lighter colour. Whoever 

 will give such information as shall lead to the discovery of the 

 same, or produce satisfactory evidence of his death, will relieve 

 the troubled minds of the curators 1 " " What on earth can have 

 become of them?" "Where can they be? "were the questions 

 each attendant asked in vain of another. If they had died they 

 would have been found in the tank, for there were no crabs there 

 that could have eaten them ; they could not have burrowed in the 

 shingle, for it was not deep enough ; and, with their obesity of 

 form, they could no more have leaped out of the tank than Mr. 

 Warden's fat boy in " Pickwick " could have jumped a five- 

 barred gate. Here was a puzzle ! One by one they were lost to 

 sight, as regularly and unaccountably as pair after pair of Lieu- 

 tenant Charles Seaforth's breeches disappeared from his bedroom 

 at Tappington, as related in the " Ingoldsby Legends." 



One morning, however, Mr. Lawler, one of the staff, on going 

 to count our young friends, found an interloper amongst them. 

 "Who put this octopus in No. 27 tank?" he inquired of the 

 keepers. " Octopus, sir ? no one ! Well, if he ain't bin and got 

 over out of the next tank ! " And this was just the fact. 



The marauding rascal had occasionally issued from the water in 

 his tank, and clambered up the rocks, and over the wall into the 

 next one ; there he had helped himself to a young lump-fish, and, 

 having devoured it, returned demurely to his own quarters by 

 the same route, with well-filled stomach and contented mind. 



