S6 THE OCTOPUS. 



only the savage roasts the glutmous carcase, instead of making 

 soup of it. In Chili, Peru, Brazil, and Teneriffe, they are eagerly 

 sought for j and they are an article of daily consumption in India 

 and China, and especially in Japan, where there is a very im- 

 portant trade in them. Professor Edward Forbes * relates his 

 experience of the use of them by the Greeks : — 



'' The traveller who, when treading the shores of the coasts 

 and islands of the ^gean, observes, as he can scarcely fail to do, 

 the innumerable remains of the hard parts of cuttle-fishes piled 

 literally in heaps along the sands — or, when watching the Greek 

 fishermen draw their nets, marks the number of these creatures 

 mixed up with the abundance of true fishes taken and equally 

 prized as articles of food by the captors — can at once understand 

 why the naturalists of ancient Greece should have treated so fully 

 of the history of the cephalopoda, and its poets have made 

 allusions to them as familiar objects. One of the most striking 

 spectacles at night on the coasts of the yEgean is to see the 

 numerous torches glancing along the shores, and reflected by the 

 still and clear sea, borne by poor fishermen paddling as silently as 

 possible over the rocky shallows in search of the cuttle-fish, which, 

 when seen lying beneath the waters in wait for his prey, they 

 dexterously spear, ere the creature has time to dart with the 

 rapidity of an arrow from the weapon about to transfix his soft 

 but firm body. As in ancient times, these molluscs constitute, 

 now, a valuable part of the food of the poor, by whom they are 

 chiefly used. We can ourselves bear testimony to their excel- 

 lence. When well beaten, to render the flesh tender, before being 

 dressed, and then cut up into morsels and served in a savoury 



supplying the Greek markets with polypi. In Greece, the octopoJs are either 

 sold after being pickled, at from ^12 i6j-. tO;^i5 <^s. the cantar of 1761b,, or 

 in their original dried state at from;!^i2 to /"14, but it must be understood that 

 these prices are subject to considerable fluctuations arising from the favourable 

 or unfavourable state of the season's fishery. 



* Travels in Lycia ; by Lieut, (now Admiral) A. B. Spratt, R.N., F.G.S., 

 and Professor Edward Forbes, F. R. S. 



