SPAWNING OF THE OCTOPUS, 59 



so seldom left her nest, she generally obtained her share of these, 

 and would seize with her suckers, and draw towards her, some- 

 times, three at a time, one by each of three of her arms. Their 

 shells were soon broken and torn apart by her powerful beak, 

 and when she had devoured the contents the hard debris was cast 

 out of her den. 



But although the old naturalist of Stageira was mistaken in 

 supposing that the female octopus does not take food during the 

 period of the development of her ova, he was right in believing 

 that her anxiety for her progeny, and her unremitting care of them, 

 tell injuriously upon her health. A brooding octopus shows signs 

 of diminished bodily vigour, as a sitting hen bird loses flesh whilst 

 hatching her eggs. Her respiration at times becomes laboured. 

 When the water is inhaled (I use the word intentionally, for the 

 animal breathes the oxygen contained in it) at the open part of the 

 mantle-sac, the siphon- tube, at its orifice, is often drawn forcibly 

 inward ; and when the pair of bellows of the body close, the same 

 opening of the tube is distended to its fullest capacity by the out- 

 rush of the exhaled water. Repeated observations have shown 

 that it not unfrequently happens that the vital powers of the 

 octopus are so exhausted by her protracted maternal cares that 

 she dies when relieved by the hatching of her eggs from the 

 necessity of further vigils. Many also die in the act of spawning, 

 or when distended with ova. 



To return to our mother octopus at Brighton, — at the end of 

 the fifth week from the deposit of her ova she began to exhibit 

 considerable irritation and restlessness, in consequence of the 

 annoyance she experienced from visitors trying to rouse her to 

 movement, or to frighten her from her eggs, by knocking at the 

 glass with coins or sticks, and flouting pocket-handkerchiefs in 

 front of her. I found that on some of these occasions, in her 

 excitement, whilst protecting her eggs from the supposed danger, 

 she had torn away the lower portion of some of the clusters, 

 and that their number was considerably diminished. It therefore 



