THE OCTOPUS OUT OF WATER. 4i 



and for about a week remained quietly at home. During that 

 time no more young lump-suckers were missing. Then he again 

 broke bounds, and, moreover, prevailed on one of his class-mates 

 to follow his bad example of going out on the loose. 



One night these two individuals left their tank, and started in 

 opposite directions on a voyage of discovery. One went east, 

 the other v.ent west ; and, as if by preconcerted plan, neither was 

 content merely to cross the frontier and visit his nearest neigh- 

 bours, but both passed through, or over, one intervening tank, 

 and settled down amongst the tribes beyond. One of them found 

 himself in a Brobdingnag of crabs — a colony of giants too strong 

 to be successfully invaded even by an armada of octopods. If he 

 had arrived at Lilliput instead — a tank inhabited by pigmy crus- 

 taceans — he would soon have depopulated it, by clutching in his 

 hateful embrace more victims per diem than ever an unwelcome, 

 foul-mouthed dragon of old demanded as his daily dole of youths 

 and maidens, to satisfy his inconvenient preference for their flesh 

 as his daintiest dish. The other traveller found his way into 

 Lobsterdom, and putting on a bold front, proceeded to attack 

 the chief. The lobster, though evidently alarmed, "showed 

 fight," and the intruder was obliged to retreat, and seek refuge in 

 a cranny of the rock-work. Although the lobster which bore the 

 brunt of the attack was a very large one, I was at the time sur- 

 prised that it so decisively vanquished the invader as to save 

 from destruction the other smaller specimens of its kind, which 

 were its companions. For it is an old notion, still generally 

 believed by fishermen, that if an octopus approaches a " pot,"' or 

 " stalker," in which are lobsters that have been entrapped, they 

 will cast off their claws, and become literally sick from fright. 



In his pleasant book, "Sub-tropical Rambles," Mr. Nicholas 

 Pike, United States Consul at Mauritius, mentions that advan- 

 tage is there taken by the native fishermen of the antipathy and 

 instinctive fear with which the Crustacea regard their enemy, the 

 octopus (called by the Creoles, the " ourite,'' by the European 



