OP CONCHOLOGY. 295 



dog, his companion in his daring expedition. God knows, 

 however, if the Poulps of our coasts deserve such a bad 

 name, and if their capture is attended with the least danger. 

 We here appeal to the recollections of all naturalists who 

 ever attempted this kind of fishing, and if we be allowed to 

 mention our own personal experience, we can certify, that, at 

 several points of the coast of the Mediterranean, as well as of 

 the ocean, we have caught Poulps, and seen them caught, and 

 that, in no case, the help of the police has ever been needed.* 



Nothing was wanting to these unfortunate creatures to lose 

 their good name entirely, but to be patronized by modern 

 literateurs. This has just been their fate. M. Victor Hugo 

 does the Poulp the honor to devote to him a whole long chap- 

 ter, in his new novel entitled " The Toilers of the Sea," and it 

 is not precisely to eulogize him. Had he been satisfied to vilify 

 him as to his morals by representing him to be of a treacher- 

 ous and hypocritical nature, and in pretending that this inver- 

 tebrate is "jelly seasoned with hatred!" we should have sighed 

 in silence on the fate of an ill-used mollusk, accompanied with 

 antithesis and pathos; but as to-boot, he endows him physi- 

 cally with an impossible, monstrous and unheard-of organiza- 

 tion, which has never existed in like animals, we cannot help 

 protesting, as a conchologist, against the lamentable encroach- 

 ment on science by literateurs who are perfectly unacquainted 

 with it, and who, therefore, speak about it like a blind man 

 would of colors. 



We do not exaggerate, we trust our readers will believe 

 us; however, they can judge for themselves. The author be- 

 gins by criticising Lamarck, highly exalting Montfort, which 

 may easily be understood, the one being, indeed, much less 

 romantic than the other. He then compares the Poulp — which 

 he calls "Pieuvre," the vulgar name given to him by the fish- 

 ermen of the islands of the Strait of Dover — with 17 animals 

 which bear no resemblance whatever to him, thus affording 

 the luxury of 17 of the strangest antithesis, of which we shall 

 only transcribe a few, for the special benefit of savants. "The 

 Bithus has pinchers, the Pieuvre has no pinchers ; the Alouat 

 has a twisting tail, the Pieuvre has no tail; the Lion has 

 claws, the Pieuvre has no claws; the Eagle has a beak, the 

 Pieuvre has no beak." 



But yes, M. Victor Hugo, the Pieuvre has a beak, and a 

 strong one, too, horny, sharp, moved by powerful muscles, 

 and very similar to a reverted parrot's beak. In taking it 

 away from this poor creature, you deprive him of his means 

 of subsistence. How otherwise do you suppose he could 



* The only really gigantic cephalopods, whose existence has been proved, 

 do not belong to the genus Poulp, but are Decapods. 



