96 THE MOLLUSCA 



eyes ; her two foremost arms extended beyond it ; their extremities 

 coiling and writhing in ceaseless motion, as if prepared to strike 

 out right and left at any intruder. Her companions evidently 

 felt that it was dangerous to approach an excited mother guard- 

 ing her offspring, and none ventured to go within arm's length 

 of her. Even her forlorn husband was made to keep his distance. 

 If he dared to approach the lady roused herself with menacing 

 air, and slowly rose till her head overtopped the barrier. A dark 

 flush of anger tinged the whole surface of the body ; the two 

 upper arms were uncoiled and stretched out to their utmost length 

 towards the interloper ; and the poor, snubbed, henpecked father 

 invariably shrank from their formidable contact, and sorrow- 

 fully and sullenly retreated, to muse, perhaps, on the brief dura- 

 tion of cephalopoda! marital happiness. Our brooding French 

 Octopus, when undisturbed, would pass one of her arms beneath 

 the hanging bunches of her eggs, and, dilating the membrane on 

 each side of it into a boat-shaped hollow, would gather and receive 

 them in it as in a trough or cradle, exhibiting in its general shape 

 and outline a remarkable similarity to those of the Argonaut or 

 Paper Nautilus, with the eggs of which Octopod its own are almost 

 identical in form and appearance. Then she would caress and 

 gently rub them, occasionally turning towards them the mouth 

 of her flexible exhalent locomotor tube, so as to direct upon them 

 a jet of the excurrent Water. I believe that the object of this 

 syringing process is to free the eggs from parasitic animalcules, 

 and possibly to prevent the growth of conferva, which I have 

 found rapidly overspread those removed from her attention. 

 Week after week she continued to attend them with the most 

 watchful and assiduous care, seldom leaving them for a moment, 

 except to take food, which, without a brief abandonment of her 

 position, would be beyond her reach." 



From the extrusion of the eggs, which may number in a large 

 Octopus from 40,000 to 50,000, to the escape of the young, a 

 period of fifty days is covered. On emerging from the egg the 

 baby Octopus is about the size of a large flea, and the arms are 

 quite short outgrowths from the head. The little creature rises 

 to the warmer and sunlit surface Waters, where it swims about 

 actively for a while, before adopting the more or less sedentary, 

 light-avoiding habits of the adult at the bottom of the sea. Thou- 





