THE KRAKEN. 
27 
A similar incident occurred to the government diver of 
the colony of Victoria, Australia. Whilst pursuing his 
avocation in the estuary of the river Moyne he was seized 
by an octopus. He killed it by striking it with an iron 
bar, and brought to shore with him a portion of it with the 
arms more than three feet long. 
Mr. Laurence Oliphant, in his ' China and Japan,' describes 
a Japanese show, which consisted of " a series of groups 
of figures carved in wood, the size of life, and as cleverly 
coloured as Madame Tussaud's wax-works. One of these 
was a group of women bathing in the sea. One of them 
had been caught in the folds of a cuttle-fish ; the others, 
in alarm, were escaping, leaving their companion to her 
fate. The cuttle-fish was represented on a huge scale, its 
eyes, eyelids, and mouth being made to move simultane- 
ously by a man inside the head." 
An attack of this kind is most artistically represented 
in a small Japanese ivory-carving in the possession of 
Mr. Bartlett, of the Zoological Gardens.* 
The Japanese are well acquainted with the octopus ; for 
it is commonly depicted on their ornaments, and forms no 
unimportant item in their fisheries. 
I have recently had an opportunity of inspecting a most 
curious Japanese book, in the possession of my friend Mr. 
W. B. Tegetmeier, which is chiefly devoted to the repre- 
sentations of the fisheries and fish-curing processes of the 
country. It is in three volumes, and is entitled, * Land and 
Sea Products,' by *Ki Kone. It is evidently ancient, for it 
is slightly worm-eaten, but the plates, each 12 inches by 
* This carving was figured in illustration of an interesting paper 
by Professor Owen, C.B., F.R.S., &c., "On some new and rare 
Cephalopoda," in the Transactions of the Zoological Society, April 20, 
1880. 
