128 The Cuttle-fish or Squid 



the Octopoda, or eight-footed ones, is to introduce at 

 once to the friendly reader's notice a mollusc he is 

 probably well-acquainted with by sight in some 

 aquarium, one that he has often shuddered over. In 

 truth, even when very small, there is something ghastly 

 about the appearance of an Octopus. The sombre 

 brown of its body, the pustular skin, the eyes in which 

 a whole inferno of hatred of everything living seems 

 to be concentrated, the palpitating orifice at the top 

 of the head which is the entrance to its body, opening 

 now and then sufficiently to show the parrot-like beak 

 common to all the race, these are grisly features, but 

 the eight arms, writhing, curling, clinging like a 

 Medusa's hair, are the features of the Octopus which 

 hold the imagination captive. 



My first experience of the Octopus was in a little 

 bay in Stewart Island, New Zealand. A small river 

 flowed into this bay, notable for its fine flounders, 

 and we (the crew of the ship in which I was then a 

 sailor) soon discovered an easy way of catching these 

 succulent fish. It was to wade about on the fine sandy 

 bed with bare feet, the water being only up to mid- 

 thigh, and when you felt the flat body wriggling under 

 your soles, tread firmly and stoop, groping in the sand 

 until you had your flounder safe between finger and 

 thumb, when you could raise him and put him in the 

 bag strapped across your shoulders. 



By-and-by we discovered that the nearer the sea 

 the finer the flounders, and so one sunny afternoon 

 I was wading in the bay near the rivulet's mouth and 

 picking up some fine specimens. Suddenly, I trod 

 upon something like a blob of jelly. Fearing a sting, 

 for most jelly-fish {Medusae) sting like nettles, I made 

 to step off, only to feel both my legs gripped in several 

 places by something that clung as if it would eat into 



