EGGS OF THE OCTOPUS. 161 



Concerning the spawning of the Octopus, Mr. Lee writes : " Our Octopus fortunately selected 

 as a suitable site for her nest a recess in the rockwork, close to the front glass of the tank, so 

 that her movements could be easily observed. Her body just filled the entrance to it; and she 

 further strengthened its defences by dragging to the mouth of her cavern two dozen or more of 

 living oysters, and piling them one on another to form a breastwork or barricade, behind which she 

 ensconced herself. Over this rampart she peered with her great sleepless, prominent eyes ; her two 

 foremost arms extended beyond it; their extremities coiling and writhing in ceaseless motion, a if pre- 

 pared to strike out right and left at any intruder. Her companions evidently felt that it was dangerous 

 to approach an excited mother guarding her offspring, and none ventured to go within arm's length of 

 her. Even her forlorn husband was made to keep his distance. If he dared to approach, with intent 

 to whisper soft words of affection into his partner's ear, or to look with paternal pride on the newly- 

 born infants, the lady roused herself with menacing air, and slowly rose till her head overtopped the 

 barrier. By an instantaneous expansion of the pigment vesicles of the skin, a dark flush of anger 

 tinged the whole surface of the body ; the two upper arms were uncoiled and stretched out to their 

 utmost length towards the interloper ; and the poor snubbed, hen-pecked father, finding his nose put 

 out of joint by the precious baby, which belonged as much to himself as to its fussy mother, invariably 

 shrank from their formidable contact, and sorrowfully and sullenly retreated, to muse, perhaps, on the 

 brief duration of cephalopoda! marital happiness. 



" The eggs of the Octopus when first laid are small, oval, translucent granules, resembling little 

 grains of rice, and not quite an eighth of an inch long. They grow along and around a common stalk, 

 to which every egg is separately attached, as grapes form part of a bunch. Each of the elongated 

 bunches is affixed by a glutinous secretion to the surface of a rock or stone (never to seaweed, as 

 has been erroneously stated), and hangs pendant by its stalk in a long white cluster, like a 

 magnified catkin of the filbert, or, to use Aristotle's simile, like the fruit of the white alder. 

 The length and number of the bunches vary according to the age and condition of the parent. 

 Those produced by a young Octopus are seldom more than about three inches long, and from 

 twelve to twenty in number ; but a full-grown female will deposit from forty to fifty 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 & large Octopus produces 

 in one laying, usually extending over three days, a progeny of from 40,000 to 50,000. Our 

 brooding French Octopus, when undisturbed, would 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, 

 would gather and receive them in it as in a trough or cradle, exhibiting in its general shape 

 and outline a remarkable similarity to that of the Argonaut, or Paper Nautilus, 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 

 exhalent locomotor tube, like the nozzle of a fireman's hose-pipe, so as to direct upon them 

 a jet of the ex-current 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 overspread those removed from her attention. Week after week she 

 continued to attend to them with the most watchful and assiduous care, seldom leaving them for an 

 instant, except to take food, which, withoiit a brief abandonment of her position, would be beyond 

 her reach. Aristotle asserts that while the female is incubating she takes no food. This is incorrect. 

 In the tank with our specimen were seven others of her species, and to supply them with 

 food about five-and-twenty living Shore-crabs (Carcinus mcenas) were daily tossed into it. 

 Although she so seldom left her nest, she generally obtained her share of these, and would 

 seize with her suckers, and draw towards her, sometimes three at a time, one by each of 

 three of her arms. Their shells were soon broken and torn apart by her powerful beak, and 

 when she had devoured the contents the hard debris was cast out of her den. 



" At the end of the fifth week from the deposit of her ova she began to exhibit considerable 



irritation and restlessness, in consequence of the annoyance she experienced from visitors trying 



to i-ouse her to movement, or to fi-ighten her from her eggs, by knocking at the glass with 



coins or sticks, and flouting pocket-handkerchiefs in front of her. I found that on some of 



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