APPENDIX I. 3^5 



1878 I recollect that an octopus was offered to us by the son of 

 a Babbicombe fisherman, who had taken it in a trammel-net. We 

 hesitated, but at last decided to buy it for the large sum of fifteen- 

 ])ence. In the afternoon the boy brought it up, and my husband 

 turned it into the lobster's corner of the large tank. It was 

 indeed a hideous beast, the body about the size of a large lemon. 

 It was very vigorous and active, yet not wild. After an hour or 

 two, while I was present, it pushed up into the further angle of 

 the glass partition, and managed to squeeze its body through into 

 the area of the tank, and presently found a place for itself near 

 the bottom of the middle of the glass tank, clinging with coiled 

 arms to the glass. A month later, the best tide of the whole 

 year, my husband and I drove to Goodrington Sands, where, at 

 the central ledges, he made a good collecting. A young lady 

 who was catching prawns gave us some, and our driver-boy found 

 a hole in which my husband took a wonderful number of fine 

 large prawns, squat lobsters, with others, and a large plant of 

 Trid(za edulis. All the above were lodged in the tank in good 

 condition. A crab, we gave to the octopus, who instantly seized 

 and devoured it, together with the head of a large fish and a 

 dead giant prawn. In November the octopus became languid 

 for a few days, hiding in the remotest corners— we thought 

 shrinking from the severe cold that had set in. It died on the 

 8th, after having lived with us nearly ten weeks. 



All these recreations were a great rest to Philip Gosse's active 

 brain, as the exercises and air were healthful to his body, and to 

 me they were a source of very great enjoyment. My husband 

 was a true naturalist, and the fact that for many years he got 

 his livelihood by writing books on natural history, wandering 

 among the rocks and pools, mingling all his thoughts and sympa- 

 thies with the God who formed these wonderful varieties of 

 creation, gave a zest to his life which sedentary reading or 

 authorship in his study could never have realized. 



As Kingsley has said, " Happy truly is the naturalist ! He has 

 no time for melancholy dreams. The earth becomes transparent ; 

 everywhere he sees significance, harmonies, laws, chains of cause 

 and effect endlessly interlinked, which draw him out of the narrow 

 sphere of self into a pure and wholesome region of joy and 

 wonder." My dear husband was essentially a religious man. 



