33 o MOLLUSCS. 



backward with great rapidity, being propelled by the successive expulsions of 

 water through the funnel. The arms are also made use of in swimming, and 

 those which are provided with an extensive connecting web are the most effective 

 swimmers. None of the octopods ever attain such enormous dimensions as some 

 of the decopods, still some would be very dangerous foes to cope with beneath the 

 water. Mr. J. K. Lord saw the arm of an octopus, captured at Vancouver Island, 

 which measured 5 feet in length, and was as thick as his wrist ; and M. Verany 

 has given an account of a specimen which measured 3 metres from tip to tip of 

 the outstretched arms. In the account of the molluscs, obtained during the voyage 

 of the Samara ag, Mr. Adams observes : " Octopi of enormous size are occasionally 

 met with among the islands of the Mei'a-co-shima group. I measured one, which 

 two men were bearing on their shoulders across a pole, and found each arm 

 rather more than 2 feet long, giving the creature the power of exploring an area 

 of about twelve feet without moving, taking the mouth for a central point, and 

 the extremities of the arms to describe the circumference." 



In 1872 a very large specimen was stranded on the beach in the Bahamas, the 

 arms of which were 5 feet long, and the weight was estimated at 200 to 300 lbs. 

 The eggs of the Octopus vulgaris when first laid are small, oval, translucent 

 granules, resembling grains of rice, not quite the eighth of an inch long. They 

 are fixed along and around a common stalk, to which every egg is separately 

 attached. These clusters vary in length according to the condition or age of the 

 parent ; those produced by a young octopus seldom exceeding three inches in 

 length, and from twelve to twenty in number ; but a large, full-grown female 

 will deposit from forty to fifty of such clusters, each about five inches in length. 

 In each of these clusters Mr. Lee counted about a thousand ova, so that a 

 single octopus may produce at one laying a progeny of from forty to fifty 

 thousand. The mother octopus watches, tends, and guards the egg-clusters for 

 about fifty days, when the young emerge from the capsules. The sexes differ 

 scarcely at all externally, but at the breeding-season a curious modification in the 

 third right arm of the male is noticeable. It becomes swollen, and from it a long 

 worm-like process is developed, furnished with two rows of sockets (the Hecto- 

 cotylus). From the end of this process extends a slender, elongated filament. 

 When its owner offers his hand to a female octopus, she not only accepts it, but 

 keeps it, for this remarkable outgrowth is then detached from the arm of her 

 suitor, and becomes a moving creature, having separate life, and continuing to exist 

 for some time after being transferred to her keeping. The lost portion of the 

 hectocotylised arm of the male is gradually reproduced, and in due time assumes 

 its former appearance. 



A second group of octopods (Eledone), which occurs in the Mediterranean and 

 also on the British coasts, differs from the common octopus in having but a single 

 row of suckers down each arm. In E. moschatus, the body is very changeable in 

 form, pouch-like, oval, rounded, or pointed behind, smooth or warty, just as the 

 animal likes. The great size of the mantle-opening, which extends a little over the 

 back, is also remarkable. It is of a grey, yellow, or yellow-brown colour, with blackish 

 spots, and a bluish edge to the web, and is met with on sandy and gravelly bottoms 

 at all times of the year, more rarely among rocks. The rapidity with which the 



