166 PEOF. OWEN ON NEW AND EAEE CEPHALOPODA. 



In the account given by the government diver of the colony of Victoria, Australia, 

 in his Report, as cited in the weekly journal entitled 'The Colonies and India 'i, it 

 appears that, pursuing his avocation in the estuary of the river Moyne, and having 

 occasion to explore a hole in the bed, " his arm was seized by the tentacles of an 

 Octopus, part of which he brought to shore, after mutilating his assailant with strokes 

 of ' a small iron bar.' " This part, probably consisting of the head with more or less of 

 the crown and arms, " being laid out, measured over 8 feet across." 



We may assume this measurement to have been taken from the tip of one out- 

 stretched cephalic arm to that of the opposite arm. Now the length of the longest 

 arm of my Australian Tritaxeopns (Plate XXIII. fig. 1) is 1 foot 11 inches ; the breadth 

 of the head intervening between the third pair of arms is 2 inches 2 lines ; so, from 

 the tip of one of such arms to the opposite one gives 4 feet. 



If the Victorian diver took his measurements from tip to tip of the corresponding 

 pair of acetabuliferous arms, and we deduct the breadth of the intervening part of the 

 head according to the scale of Tritaxeopns, the length of such outstretched arm of the 

 Moyne-river Octopod may be set down as 3 feet 10 inches; and the extent of the 

 pair, with the intervening head reckoned at 4 inches 4 lines in breadth, would give 

 8 feet 2 inches, closely agreeing with the diver's statement. 



Stretching out the first dorsal pair of arms in a line with the body, the total length 

 of Tritaxeojjus cormdas is I foot 6 inches ; allowing the like proportion to the dorsal 

 arm of the Moyne-river Octopod, its total length may be set down as 3 feet. 



The ascertained differences in the proportions of arms, head, and body in the known 

 species of Octopods do not, as a rule, support an inference of any notable error in the 

 dimensions aboA^e estimated of the Moyne " Monster or Devil-fish," respecting which 

 the diver states : — " After a while I found the grip begin to relax a little ; but he held 

 on until I had almost cut him to pieces ; and then he relaxed his hold from the rock, 

 and I pulled him up." This statement, with that of the circumstances of the first 

 attack, viz. the seizure of the diver's arm, wliich he had thrust into a hole, by an arm 

 of the Octopod, exemplifies the same habits of that form of Australian Cephalopod 

 which have been noted in our common European Octojnis. 



There seems then to be no sufficient ground for the heading " Conflict of a Man with 

 a Gigantic or Monster Cuttlefish," superposed to the govern- Fi?. 4. 



ment diver's Report, copied from the official statement into the 

 journal above cited. The assailant seems not to have been 

 more than thrice the ordinary average size of the Octojms 

 vulgaris. 



An Octopus with sucker-bearing arms of from 3 to 4 feet 

 length, may well have afforded the subject of the accomplished 

 Japanese sculptor (cut, fig. 4), whose work is graphically de- 



' ^' limber for L'tlli JaiiuaiT, 1880. 



