SPAWNING OF THE OCTOPUS. 57 



approach an excited mother guarding her offspring, and none 

 ventured to go within arm's length of her. Even her forlorn 

 husband was made to keep his distance. If he dared to approach 

 with intent to whisper soft words of affection into his partner's 

 ear, or to look with paternal pride on the newly-born infants, the 

 lady roused herself with menacing air, and slowly rose till her 

 head over-topped the barrier ; by an instantaneous expansion of 

 the pigment vesicles of the skin, a dark flush of anger tinged the 

 whole surface of the body ; the two upper arms were uncoiled 

 and stretched out to their utmost length towards the interloper; 

 and the poor snubbed, hen-pecked father, finding his nose put out 

 of joint by the precious baby, which belonged as much to himself 

 as to its fussy mother, invariably shrank from their formidable 

 contact, and sorrowfully and sullenly retreated, to muse, perhaps, 

 on the brief duration of cephalopodal marital happiness. All 

 his fellows in the tank knew that he was in bad humour, and 

 took care to keep out of his way. As soon as they saw him 

 coming towards them they gathered their arms close together in 

 a straight line, and swam off rapidly, tail first, to the further side 

 of the tank. 



The eggs of the octopus, when first laid, are small, oval, trans- 

 lucent granules, resembUng little grains of rice, not quite an 

 eighth of an inch long. They grow along and around a common 

 stalk, to which every egg is separately attached, as grapes form 

 part of a bunch. Each of the elongated bunches is affixed by a 

 glutinous secretion to the surface of a rock or stone (never to 

 seaweed, as has been erroneously stated), and hangs pendent by 

 its stalk in a long white cluster, like a magnified catkin of the 

 filbert, or, to use Aristotle's simile, like the fruit of the white alder. 

 The length and number of these bunches varies according to the 

 age and condition of the parent. Those produced by a young 

 octopus are seldom more than about three inches long, and 

 from twelve to twenty in number; but a full-grown female 

 will deposit from forty to fifty of such clusters, each about 



