THE SQUID AND OCTOPUS — BARTSCH. 



859 



tentacle the greater part of the following forenoon and relinquished it 

 only, and that with regret, when my jaws, aching from overexertion, 

 refused to operate more. 



On the island of Guam we found an entirely different method in 





use. Here Vv'e 

 watched the na- 

 tiA'es fishing for 

 the octopus on 

 the inside of the 

 slender reef that 

 stretched from 

 Capra Island to- 

 ward the steamer 

 entrance to the 

 beautiful P i t i 

 ; ; Bay and Ha rbor. 



The natives here take a specimen of a large, 

 repulsive-looking Holothurian and tie it to a 

 line with a sinker. This is lowered among 

 the crevices of the reef. If it finds a cavity 

 with an octopus the animal at once leaves 

 the premises and is then easily speared by 

 the man in the bow of the canoe. There is 

 evidently something about the Holothurian 

 that is so intensely distasteful to the octupus 

 that he at once forsakes his lair. 



It is quite a picture to see these fishermen 

 as they ^York in the very teeth of the j)ound- 

 ing surf with a craft so frail that one con- 

 stantly wonders how they manage to keep it 

 from being dashed to pieces. 

 The following is a quotation taken from an article by Dr. H. M. 

 Smith on "Japan, the Paramount Fishing Nation,"^ which shows 

 how the Japanese fishermen catch these animals: 



The octopus or devilfish is abundant and is an important food product in 

 Japan, although my personal opinion is that it does not appeal strongly to the 



1 Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, July, 1904, p. 119. 



Fig. 3. — Torchlight octopus 

 hunt in the Philippines. 



