70 HABITS OF THE CEPHALOPODA. 



entire ray hangs like a (load snake, a limp, lifeless mass. And 

 thus the [ndian stabs and stabs, until the octopus, deprived of 

 all power to do harm, is draped into the canoe, a great, inert, 

 quivering lump of brown-looking jelly. LORD.* 



YI. Indian women are reported to have been drowned by 

 being clasped by huge Octopods whilst bathing in the Pacific, 

 on the coasts of British America, and among the Indians are 

 traditions of narrow escapes. There is also a tradition among 

 the Chimsgau Indians that about seventy years ago a two-masted 

 vessel, with an oriental crew aboard, was seized (at Milbank 

 Sound, lat. 52) by an enormous squid, and was onl}- rescued by 

 chopping its tentacles with axes. The Indians add that the 

 " evil influence " of the squid caused the subsequent wreck of the 

 vessel at a point further south on the coast. G. M. DAWSON, in 

 Nature. 



The newspapers frequently contain accounts of the encounters 

 of submarine divers with gigantic cephalopods ; the following is 

 a recent instance : 



A DIVER AND A DEVIL-FISH. The diver engaged at the 

 Moyne River, Belfast, in removing the reef, had a narrow escape 

 from losing his life on Thursday. It appears that Mr. Smale had 

 fired oif a charge of dynamite and displaced a large quantity of 

 stones at the bottom of the river. He went down to prepare for 

 lifting these stones by the aid of chains into the punt. While 

 engaged in rolling over a large stone he saw something which he 

 supposed at the time was a piece of clean-looking kelp moving 

 about in front of where he was working. In a few seconds the 

 object came in contact with the diver's arm, about which it 

 quickly coiled, partly holding him. Immediately Mr. Smale 

 touched what was coiled around his arm he beeame aware of his 

 position, and tried to extricate himself from the grasp of a 

 u sea-devil," but found it far more difficult than he anticipated. 

 Catching hold of the part hanging from the arm. he walked along 

 the bottom of the river toward the end of it, when he saw he was 

 firmly held by one of the feelers of a large Octopus, better known 

 among sailors as the " devil-fish." Mr. Smale tried to pull the 



"The Naturalist in British Columbia," i, 193, 1866. 



