THE SQUID AND OCTOPUS — BARTSCH. 357 



The octopus is carnivorous, and hence must seek his animal prey. 

 He lives chiefly on moUusks and fish, and even Pliny, in the long 

 ago, shows a remarkable knowledge of their habits, for he states : 



They feed upon the flesh of shellfish, the shells of which they can easily 

 breal£ in the embrace of their arms; hence it is that their retreat may be 

 easily detected by the pieces of shell which lie before it. * * * In its own 

 domestic matters it manifests considerable intelligence. It carries its prey 

 to its home, and after eating all the flesh, throws out the debris, and then 

 pursues such small fish as may chance to swim toward them. It also changes 

 its color according to the aspect of the place where it is, and more especially 

 when it is alarmed. 



The octopus, however, is not always the hunter, but frequently 

 the hunted. Not least among his enemies is man, for since very 

 ancient times he has been considered a choice morsel in many coun- 

 tries. The Greeks and Eomans considered them the finest fish in 

 the sea. Pliny tells us that the gourmands of Rome ate every 

 variety of octopus known in the Mediterranean. They were cooked 

 in a pie, the arms being cut off, and the body filled with spices; and 

 the Romans were so careful in their preparation that their cooks 

 used pieces of bamboo for drawing the body, instead of knives of 

 iron, which were supposed to communicate an ill flavor to the de- 

 licious morsel. How highly the cuttle was esteemed by the Greeks 

 is evident from a story told of Philoxenus of Syracuse, who, de- 

 siring a delicious dinner, caused a polypus of three feet spread to 

 be prepared for the principal dish. He ate it alone, all but the 

 head, and was taken so sick in consequence of his surfeit that a 

 l>hysician was called. On being bluntly told that his case was 

 desperate, and that he had but a few hours to live, Philoxenus called 

 for the head which had been left over from dinner, ate that, and 

 resigned himself to his fate, saying that he left nothing on the earth 

 which seemed to him worthy of regret. 



The methods emploj^ed in their capture vary w^ith the people pur- 

 suing them. Aristotle tells us that the cuttlefish and the octopus 

 may be caught by bait. The octopus, in fact, clings so tightly to the 

 rocks that it can not be pulled off, but remains attached even when 

 the knife has been employed to sever it ; and yet, if you apply fleabane 

 to the creature, it drops off at the very smell of it. This procedure is 

 still common on the Mediterranean shores, where either fleabane 

 {Inula coryza) or the even handier drug tobacco is used for this 

 purpose. 



Simmonds, in his Commercial Products of the Sea, gives the fol- 

 lowing quotation from Vice Consul Green's report on octopus fish- 

 ing on the Tunisian coast in modern times : 



On the first arrival of the Octopodia in the shallows they keep in masses 

 or shoals, but speedily separate in search of shelter among the rocks near the 

 beach, covered by only 1 or 2 feet of water, and in the stony localities prepared 

 73839°— SM 1916 24 



