218 THE BOTTOM OF THE bKA. 



stirs the waves, or with the feeblest motion of the 

 ocean-currents. 



The giant poulpe has yet to be discovered. We 

 find, indeed, on rocky coasts, in the rugged fis- 

 sures and caverns of the ocean, the well-known devil- 

 fish, hideous enough truly, resembling a sack with 

 serpent-like arms surrounding a horrible mouth. 

 With these arms the poulpe seizes, his prey in a far 

 from agreeable embrace, and sucks, him, as a spider 

 does a fly, before swallowing him, so as to enjoy at 

 his ease the juicy flesh of his struggling victim. 

 These horrible creatures will sometimes attack man, 

 though, generally speaking, they avoid him. In all 

 the recorded instances, however, the danger and the 

 horror have been exaggerated. An adventurer bold 

 enough to thrust his arm. into one of these glutinous 

 sacks may turn it inside-out like a glove, and, con- 

 trary to what we have observed in the fresh-water 

 hydra, the marine monster will not survive the opera- 

 tion. In one other respect it is very inferior to the 

 hydra of mythology, for its arms are very far from 

 possessing the power of recoil after a wound ; if they 

 are separated from the trunk, the collapse is instan- 

 taneous. 



The calmars appear to reach much larger dimen- 

 sions than the poulpes : they are sufficiently formid- 

 able to be dreaded hj the so-vages who traverse, ix\ 



