334 SEA MONSTERS UNMASKED. 



the other ; but there are comparatively few persons in our 

 own country, at the present day, except those who have 

 made marine zoology their study, whose ideas on the sub- 

 ject are not exceedingly hazy. This want of technical 

 knowledge is not confined to the masses ; but is common, 

 if not general, amongst those who have been well educated, 

 and is frequently apparent even in leaders in the daily 

 papers the productions, for the most part, of men of 

 receptive minds, trained discrimination, and great general 

 knowledge. As the subject is one in which I have long 

 felt especial interest, I venture to hope that I may succeed 

 in making clear the difference between the eight-footed 

 octopus and its ten-footed relatives, and thus enable the 

 reader to identify the member of the family from which we 

 are to strip the dress and " make up " in which it masque- 

 raded as the Kraken, and cause it to appear in its true 

 and natural form. 



One of the great primary groups or divisions of the 

 animal kingdom is that of the soft-bodied mollusca ; which 

 includes the cuttle, the oyster, the snail, &c. It has been 

 separated into five "classes," of which the one we have 

 especially to notice is the Cephalopoda* or " head-footed," 

 the animals belonging to it having their feet, or the 

 organs which correspond with the foot of other molluscs, so 

 attached to the head as to form a circle or coronet round 

 the mouth. Some of these have the foot divided into eight 

 segments, and are therefore called the Octopoda :\ others 

 have, in addition to the eight feet, lobes, or arms, two 

 longer tentacular appendages, making ten in all, and are 

 consequently called the Decapoda. 



* From the Greek words cephale, the head ; andfoda, feet, 

 f From octo, eight ; and^ous (poda}, feet. 



