MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 119 
the lower surfaces and on the inside of the arms and web. The color varies 
much, as in all other cephalopods, according to the mode of preservation, 
strength of the alcohol, etc. In the best preserved specimens there are irregu- 
lar, ill-defined blotches and spots of darker purplish brown, often longitudinal 
in direction, scattered over the upper surfaces of the body, head, and web, and 
on the sides of the body, beneath. Between these blotches the surface is rather 
thickly sprinkled with small, dark brown chromatophores. 
In life, the color seems to be very changeable. Mr. A. Agassiz has sent 
me two colored drawings made by him in 1859, from a living specimen taken 
in the Gulf of Georgia, W. T., and kept in confinement. In one of these draw- 
ings the color of the dorsal surface of the body, which is represented as nearly 
smooth, is purplish red, mottled and streaked with dark brown and with a 
longitudinal band of brown along the sides, running back from the eyes; the 
upper and front sides of the web and arms are dull purplish red, irregularly 
mottled with dark brown ; the bases of the ventral arms, with the web between 
them, and the lower surfaces of the head, have a lighter orange tint. In the 
other drawing (a side view) the whole surface of the body and head is repre- 
sented as covered with large and prominent, irregularly wavy folds and ridges, 
separated by deep wrinkles; the folds are larger posteriorly, but project as 
irregular warts, both on the back and on the ventral surfaces. The colors of 
the body and head, in this figure, are dark and rather bright ; the upper parts 
are mottled and streaked with lake-red, dull orange, dark brown, and grayish 
green, the dark brown and red tints predominating ; the lower surfaces are 
lighter, but similarly mottled, with the orange and lake-red tints most con- 
spicuous ; the siphon and edges of the gill-opening are orange-yellow, the 
latter bordered with dark brown ; eyelids brownish red ; eyes silvery. 
According to the drawings referred to, the body, in life, is swollen and pyri- 
form or ovate, much broader and thicker than the head. In one of the figures 
there appears to be a membranous fold running along the sides and forming a 
posterior prominence at the end of the body ; in this figure the membranous 
folds along the sides of the arms are represented as much wider and extending 
nearer to the ends than in the preserved specimens. 
Mr. William H. Dall, who has observed this species in life, furnishes the 
following notes on its habits: “When angry the horn over the eye is erected, 
the arms coil together, the eye dilates, and the body quivers with rage. The 
muscles keep up a squirming motion, but I have never seen any approach to 
the dark color figured by Chenu as characteristic of the angry Octopus vulgaris 
_of the Mediterranean, nor any such elevated longitudinal ridges. The suckers 
project or are retracted according to’the mood of the animal; their outer edge 
expands when about to seize hold, and contracts after getting hold of anything. 
In very large individuals the extremities of the arms are long and much attenu- 
ated. I suppose they can adjust their shape to their quarters, but when in 
motion the body is round and always on top and the oral disk is invisible. It 
never willingly turns its mouth up, and when forced to do so clinches its arms, 
like a fist, over it. With death comes flaccidity and flattening. One witha 
