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THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM MAGAZINE. 



When the octopus launches itself in 

 the water, it expands a large web, like 

 an open umbrella, the ribs formed by 

 the eight arms or feet, to which its name 

 refers. In the centre of the arms is 

 the mouth, the point of whose black 

 parrot-like beak rises above the lips. 

 The octopus has many ways of swim- 

 ming ; sometimes it rows itself along 

 with the arms for oars, or it spreads the 

 umbrella web and then darts backwards 

 with a jerk by suddenly furling it, or 

 the arms may be held straight and 

 together while the animal drives back- 

 wards by pumping jets from the 

 siphonal tube. 



An Octopus at rest. 



[ Photo. - 



-G. C. Clutton. 



Some fanciful writers like Victor 

 Hugo treat the octopus unjustly, de- 

 scribing it as the most horrible and 

 dreadful creature in the world. The 

 following account of an octopus hunt 

 from the pen of that able naturalist, 

 Mr. J. K. Lord, describes the octopus 

 as it really is : 



" The Indian looks upon the Octopus 

 as an alderman does on turtle, and 

 devours it with equal gusto and relish, 

 only the savage roasts the glutinous 



carcase instead of boiling it. His mode 

 of catching octopi is crafty in the ex- 

 treme, for Redskin well knows from 

 past experience that were the octopus 

 once to get some of its large arms over 

 the side of the canoe, and at the same 

 time a holdfast on the wrack, it could 

 as easily haul it over as a child could 

 upset a basket. Paddling the canoe 

 close to the rocks and quietly pushing 

 aside the wrack, the savage peers 

 through the crystal water, until his 

 practised eye detects an octopus (with 

 its great rope like arms stiffened out) 

 waiting patiently for food. His spear 

 is twelve feet long, armed at the end 

 with four pieces of hard wood, made 

 harder by being baked and charred in 

 the fire ; these project about fourteen 

 inches beyond the spear haft, each 

 piece having a barb on one side, and are 

 arranged in a circle round the spear 

 end and lashed firmly on with cedar 

 bark. Having spied out the octopus, 

 the hunter passes the spear carefully 

 through the water, until within an inch 

 or so of the central disk, and then sends 

 it in as deep as he can plunge it. 



"Writhing with pain and passion, the 

 octopus coils its long arms around the 

 haft ; Redskin, making the side of the 

 canoe a fulcrum for his spear, keeps the 

 struggling monster well off and raises 

 it to the surface of the water. He is 

 dangerous now ; if he could get a hold- 

 fast on either savage or canoe nothing 

 short of chopping off the arms piece- 

 meal would be of any avail. 



" But the wily Redskin knows all this, 

 and has taken care to have another 

 spear, unbarbed, long, straight, smooth, 

 and very sharp, and with this he stabs 

 the octopus where the arms join the 

 central disk. I suppose the spear must 

 break down the numerous ganglions 

 supiilying the motive power, as the 

 stabbed arms lose at once strength and 

 tenacity ; the suckers that a moment 

 before hold on with a force ten men 

 could not have overcome, relax, and the 

 entire ray hangs like a dead snake, a 

 limp, lifeless mass. And thus the 

 Indian stabs and stabs until the octopus, 

 deprived of all power to do harm, is 

 dragged into the canoe, a great inert 

 quivering lump of brown-looking jelly."' 



