I had swung the camera far enough in following the progress of“tho eel 
toward him. hut ■when the area appeared there was nothing in it but a cloud 
of smoke. Tom, who had had his eye on the octo, told me that the instant 
the moray came into sight the octo had dropped the crab, shot out a cloud 
of ink, and shot for the coiling. He apparently was so rattled that he had 
not thought of retreating into his house, and was huddled in a corner of 
the nen too in as small a ball as possible. We plucked him down and put 
A. X J. fc. 
him back into his cage. I am positive that the moray hadn’t even seen him* 
July 28* 
Glassed up the pens this morning and immediately put in the octo in 
his house* We allowed him to get used to the place while we worked with 
a scorpion and with the angler* Nothing much on either of those two* I 
believe the scorpion did teke two inojaras* his reactions are interesting* 
When there are possible victims about he freezes wherever he happens to be, 
even if it is out in the open* He spreads his pectorals wide and braces 
them against the bottom or profarrably a rook, and then waits, ready as a 
cocked gun* His pink eyes follow the movements of the minnows, and as one 
approaches he leans towards it ever so slightly, as though it were some sort 
of magnet* You can see the pressure mount in him as the prey comes closer* 
And when he jumps — not over three inches — the minnow vanishes* The 
movement is much too fast for the eye* He opens and closes his big trap- 
door of a mouth two or three times afterwards as though smacking his lips, 
and that is all. He is ready for another little fish to come too close* 
