THE "SAILING" OF THE NAUTILUS. 273 



twelve to twenty in number ; but a full-grown female will 

 deposit from forty to fifty of such clusters, each about five 

 inches in length. I have counted the eggs of which these 

 clusters are composed, and find that there are about a 

 thousand in each : so that a large octopus produces in one 

 laying, usually extended over three days, a progeny of 

 from 40,000 to 50,000. I have seen an octopus, when 

 undisturbed, 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, gather and receive 

 them in it, as in a trough or cradle which exhibited in its 

 general shape and outline a remarkable similarity to the 

 shell of the argonaut, 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 exhalant and loco- 

 motor tube, like the nozzle of a fireman's hose-pipe, 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 over- 

 spreads those removed from her attention." * 



It has been suggested that the syringing may be for the 

 purpose of keeping the water surrounding the eggs well 

 aerated ; but this is evidently erroneous, for the water 

 ejected from the tube has been previously deprived of its 

 oxygen, and consequently of its health-giving properties, 

 whilst passing over the gills of the parent. Week after 

 week, for fifty days, a brooding octopus will continue to 

 attend to her eggs with the most watchful and assiduous 

 care, seldom leaving them for an instant except to take 

 food, which, without a brief abandonment of her position, 



* The Octopus, 1873, P- 57- " 

 VOL III. H. T 



