258 EDIBLE BRITISH MOLLUSC A. 



head to a more secure dwelling-place with promises of 

 cocoa-nuts in return for safe carriage, not only forgot 

 to pay his passage, but, having felt ill on the voyage, 

 behaved in anything but a nice manner ; these facts 

 so rankled in the hearts of the Octopi, that they are 

 quite unable to resist making an onslaught on a bait 

 which combines the elements of both rat and nut. The 

 natives set great store by these baits, which they call 

 Makafechi*."* 



The following legend of the Cuttle-fish, from ' Tales 

 of Old Japan/ may not be uninteresting to some of my 

 readers. " The citizens of Yedo flock for purposes 

 convivial or religious, or both, to Meguro, one of the 

 many places round Yedo, and cheek by jowl with old 

 shrines and temples you meet with many a pretty tea- 

 house. In one of them a thriving trade is carried on 

 in the sale of wooden tablets, with the picture of a 

 pink cuttle-fish on a bright blue ground. These are, 

 ex-votos, destined to be offered up at the Temple of 

 Yakushi-Niurai, the Buddhist's ^Bsculapius, which 

 stands opposite, and concerning the foundation of 

 which, the following legend is given. 'In the days of 

 old there was a priest called Jikaku, who, at the age of 

 forty years, it being the autumn of the tenth year of 

 the period called Tencho (A.D. 833), was suffering from 

 a disease of the eyes, which had attacked him three 

 years before. In order to be healed of this disease he 

 carved a figure of Yakushi-Niurai, to which he used to 

 offer up his prayers. Five years later he went to 

 China, taking with him the figure as his guardian 

 saint, and at a place called Kairetsu it protected him 

 from robbers, wild beasts, and from other calamities. 

 * ' Voyage of the Wanderer.' 



