OCTOPODID^. It 



fire : these project about fourteen inches bej^ond 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 cedai'-bark. 

 Having spied out the Octopus, the hunter passes the spear care- 

 full}^ through the water until within an inch or so of the centre 

 disk, and then sends it in as deep as he can plunge it. Writhing 

 with pain and passion, the Octopus coils its terrible arms round 

 the haft ; redskin, maldng the side of his canoe a fulcrum for his 

 spear, keeps the struggling monster well off, and raises it to the 

 surface of the water. It is dangerous now ; if it could get a hold- 

 fast on either savage or canoe, nothing short of chopping ofl' the 

 arms piecemeal would be of anj'^ 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 

 nervous ganglions supplying motive power, as the stabbed arms 

 lose at once strength and tenacity; the suckers, that a moment 

 before held 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." . 



Mrs. Lucie L. Hartt thus relates her experience with an 

 Octopus : 



" It was during my first visit to Brazil, that one day, while 

 busily engaged in examining a reef at a little town on the coast 

 called Guarapary, my eye fell on an object in a shallow tide-pool, 

 packed away in the crevice of the reef, which excited m}^ curi- 

 osity. I could see nothing but a pair of very bright eyes ; but, 

 concluding that the e3^es had an owner, I determined very rashly 

 to secure him. I had been handling corals, and seemed to have 

 forgotten that all the inhabitants of the sea are not harmless. I 

 put my hand down very quietly so as not to ruffle the water, when, 

 suddenh^, to my surprise, it was seized with a pressure far too 

 ardent to be agreeable, and I was held fast. I tugged hard to 

 get away, but this uncivil individual, whoever he was, evidently 

 had as strong a hold on the rocks as he had on my hand, and 

 was not easily to be persuaded to let go of either. At last, 

 however, he became convinced that he must choose between us, 

 and so let go his hold upon the rocks, and I found clinging to 

 my right hand, bj'^ his long arms, a large octopod cuttle-fish, and 

 I began to suspect that I had caught a Tartar. His long arms 

 were wound around my hand, and these arms, b}^ the way, were 

 covered with rows of suckers, somewhat like those with which 

 boys lift stones, and escape from them was almost impossible. I 



