CHAPTER VI. 



NEW LIMBS FOR OLD ONES. 



It is a not uncommon occurrence that when an octopus is 

 caught, it is found to have one or more of its arms shorter than 

 the rest, and showing marks of having been amputated, and of 

 the formation of a new growth from the old cicatrix. Several 

 such specimens have been brought to the Brighton Aquarium ; 

 one of which was particularly interesting. Two of its arms had 

 evidently been bitten off about four inches from the base; and out 

 from the end of each healed stump (which, in proportion to the 

 length of the limb, was as if a man's arm had been amputated half- 

 way between the shoulder and elbow) grew a slender Httle piece of 

 newly-formed arm, about as large as a lady's stiletto, or a small 

 button-hook — in fact, just the equivalent of worthy Captain Cuttle's 

 iron hook, which did duty for his lost hand. It was not a specimen 

 of the remarkable hectocotyhcs development of the arm of the male 

 octopus which takes place during the breeding season, but an 

 illustrative example of the repair and restoration of a mutilated 

 limb.* 



* Professor Steenstinip says that almost every octopus he has examined has 

 had one or two arms reproduced, and that he has seen females in which all the 

 eight arms had been lost, but were more or less restored ; also a male in which 

 the same was the case on seven of the arms, — the hectocotylized limb alone 

 being uninjured. He adds that whilst the Octopoda possess the power of repro- 

 ducing with great facility and rapidity their aims which are exposed to so many 

 enemies, the Decapoda— (the Sepiidas and Squids)— appear to be incapable of 

 thus repairing and replacing accidental injuries. — [See the translation of his 

 paper by Mr. W. S. Dallas, in the " Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Histy." of 

 August, 1857; No. 1 1 6, 2nd series; p. 107.] 



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