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1878.] Walks Round San Francisco—The Bay Shore. 509 
that it looks like a walking umbrella, the handle supplied by the 
elongated oval body which rises from the center of the disk. At the 
base of the body, next the arms, are a pair of goggle eyes, which 
seem to wear anything but an amiable expression as we cautiously 
seize him by the body and introduce him forcibly into a jar of 
sea-water, taking care that he does not clasp his sucker-covered 
arms around our hands as we perform the operation. 
Small and comparatively innocent is this Octopus punctatus 
Gabb, for he does not measure more than two feet from tip to 
tip of arms, but even he, could he get our finger between the 
parrot-like jaws which lie deep down inside the umbrella, would 
make us think we had caught a tartar. This, and the six others 
we see before our excursion is ended, are all baby Octopi, but in 
the market of San Francisco occasionally hangs a “devil-fish ” 
of the same species with arms from five to six feet long, an un- 
canny object when dead, and one to be avoided when alive. Not 
long ago in the Straits of Fuca, near Victoria, an Indian woman 
was drowned by an Octopus probably of this species. John Keast 
Lord tells us that the Indians of Vancouver's island fish for them 
with a spear and a knife, each at the end of a pole some fifteen 
feet long. Driving the spear into the body they hold the Octopus 
at a safe distance while, wielding the knife with the other hand, 
they sever one by one the formidable arms, whose double rows of 
Suckers would, could they but once lay hold, never leave their 
Victim till he was brought within reach of the jaws, An old 
Frenchman who comes along with one of these octopi impaled on 
a stick tells us he is taking it for a treat to his wife and family. 
Finding a second, he grows ecstatic as he pounds its head (as he calls 
the body) on a rock, apostrophizing it meanwhile in terms of min- 
gled dislike and contentment. They surely must be good. 
Frenchmen eat them, Spaniards think “gibiones” a delicacy, 
Italians do not disdain them, Chinamen devour them; why not 
_ Anglo-Saxons? But the Anglo-Saxon, and the Celt also, have 
much to learn yet in the way of food, and must surely learn 
much as the world becomes more crowded, unless they wish to 
be “improved ” away from the face of the earth. 
We have now rounded the point, and reached the valley beyond. 
a There is the usual sandbar, backed by a small lagoon, from which 
a rillet flows across the beach. Here we leave the shore and 
_ ascend the hill, gathering the wild flowers as we go. Patches of : 
