162 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



these occasions, in her excitement whilst protecting her eggs from the supposed danger, she 

 had torn away the lower portion of some of the clusters, and that their number was considerably 

 diminished. It therefore became necessary to screen her from the public gaze. Fearing 

 also that, notwithstanding the cessation of the interruption to which she had been subjected, 

 she might by her over-fussiness destroy the remainder of her progeny, a portion of her eggs 



were removed, and transferred to a smaller tank. 

 By the removal of these eggs I hoped also that an 

 interesting question concerning their development 

 might be finally answered. Aristotle had been under- 

 stood to affirm that the parent Octopus ' incubates ' 

 her eggs. I had always expressed very decidedly 

 my opinion, derived from previous experiments 

 on the eggs of the Cuttle-fish and Squid (Sepia 

 and Loligo), that the ova once impregnated no in- 

 cubation by the parent is required, or takes place, 

 in a sense, equivalent to that of a fowl developing 

 a chick by the warmth of its body, but that her 

 unremitting attention to them is solely for the pur- 

 pose of protecting them from injury, keeping them 

 free from animal and vegetable parasites, and pre- 

 venting their being devoured by fishes. 



" The eggs which were taken away on the forty- 

 second day from their extrusion for special inspection 

 were successfully hatched, and I do not doubt that 

 if they could have been kept free from pai-asites this 

 would have taken place if they had been detached 

 immediately after they were laid. The young Octopods 

 made their appearance on the 8th, 9th, and 10th 

 of August, the eggs had been extruded on the 19th, 

 20th, and 21st of June, and thus, although it was 

 proved as I expected, that the development of 

 the embryo does not depend on incubation, the accuracy of Aristotle's statement that its 

 period in the egg is fifty days was completely and satisfactorily confirmed. 



" The young Octopus fresh from the egg is of about the size of a large flea, and when 

 irritated is nearly of the same colour. It is veiy different in appearance from an adult 

 individual of the same species. At first sight it is more like a Sepia, without its tentacles, 

 than an Octopus. The arms, which will afterwards be four or five times the length of its 

 body, are so rudimentary as to be even shorter in proportion than the pedal arms of the 

 Cuttle-fish, and appear only as little conical excrescences, having points of hair-like fineness, 

 and arranged in the form of an eight-rayed coronet around the head. 



" At this early stage of its existence the young Octopus seeks and enjoys the light which 

 it will, later in life, carefully shun. It manifests no desire to hide itself in crevices and 

 recesses, as the adult does, but swims freely about in the water, often close to the surface, 

 propelling itself backward by a series of little jerks caused by each stroke of the force-pump, 

 which expels a jet of water from the out-flow pipe of the syphon."* 



" It is a not uncommon occurrence," says Mr. Henry Lee, " that when an Octopus is caught, it is 

 found to have one or more of its a.rms shorter than the rest, and showing marks of having been 

 amputated, and of the formation of a new growth from the old cicatrix. Several such specimens have 

 been brought to the Brighton Aquarium, one of which was particularly interesting. Two of its 

 arms had evidently been bitten off about four inches from their base ; and out from the end of each healed 

 stump grew a slender little piece of newly- formed arm, about as large as a lady's stiletto, or a small button- 

 hook in fact, just the equivalent of worthy Capt. Cuttle's iron hook, which did duty for his lost hand. 

 * "Aquarium Notes on the Octopus," by Henry Lee, F.L.S. 



OCTOPUS KEPOSING. 



(After a drawing b\i Mr. T. Davidson, F.R.S. Frontispiece 

 of Mr. Henry Lee's " The Octopus.") 



