CUTTLEFISHES, THE OCTOPUS, ETC. 33 



incredible when compared with the size of the animal. 

 Not long before these lines were written, a curious 

 adventure occurred to an attendant living in an aqua- 

 rium. 



He was employed in the tank which was occupied by 

 the Cuttles, and wore the usual sea-boots, which rise well 

 above the knee. An Octopus (i.e., eight-footed mollusc) 

 which was in the tank, gently thrust out one of its arms 

 and affixed it to a boot. Others followed in succession, 

 attaching themselves imperceptibly like bad habits, until 

 half the arms were fastened to the boot, and the other 

 half to the walls of the tank. 



The man tried in vain to detach the suckers which had 

 clung round his boot, or those which were sticking against 

 the wall of the aquarium, and in the end he was obliged 

 to slip off the boot, and leave it to the Octopus. Now, 

 if the same man had been bathing during the flow of the 

 tide, and a similar Octopus had affixed its arms to his 

 legs instead of his boots, nothing could have saved his 

 life. 



The largest Cuttle, however, that could be captured 

 alive, is as nothing when compared with the enormous 

 species which haunt the southern seas. What may be 

 the size to which these creature can attain it is hardly 

 possible to say. Even in the northern latitudes, one 

 specimen which was thrown up on the shores of Jutland 

 had arms as thick as a man's thigh, and M. Peron found 

 a great Cuttle whose arms were seven inches in diameter. 



The largest example of these enormous molluscs that 

 D 



