204: CURIOUS HOMES AND THEIR TENANTS. 



vesicles a dark flush of anger tinged tlie whole sur- 

 face of the body; the two upper arms were uncoiled 

 and stretched out to their utmost length toward the 

 interloper ; and the poor, snubbed, henpecked father, 

 finding his nose put out of joint by the precious ba- 

 bies which belonged as much to himself as to their 

 fussy mother, invariably shrank from their formi- 

 dable contact, and sorrowfully and sullenly retreated, 

 to muse, perhaps, on the brief duration of cephalopo- 

 dal marital happiness. 



" The eggs of the octopus when first laid are 

 small, oval, translucent granules, resembling little 

 grains of rice, and not quite an eighth of an inch 

 long. They grow along and around a common stalk, 

 to ^vhich every egg is separately attached as grapes 

 form part of a bunch. Each of the elongated bunches 

 is secured by a glutinous secretion to the surface of 

 a rock. ... A large octopus produces in one laying, 

 usually extending over three days, a progeny of from 

 forty to fifty thousand. 



" Our brooding French octopus when undisturbed 

 would pass one of her arms beneath the hanging 

 bunches, and spreading out the loose skin on both 

 sides of it into a boat-shaped hollow, would gather 

 and receive them into it as into a trough or cradle ; 

 then she would caress and gently rub them, occasion- 

 ally turning toward them her flexible tube like the 

 nozzle of a fireman's hosepipe, so as to direct upon 

 them a fresh jet of water. I believe the object of 

 this syringing process was to free them from tlie eirgs 

 of parasitic animalcules, and possibly to prevent the 



