33 ° 
MOLLUSCS. 
backward with great rapidity, being propelled by the successive expulsions of 
water through the funnel. The arms are also made use of in swimming, and 
those which are provided with an extensive connecting web are the most effective 
swimmers. None of the octopods ever attain such enormous dimensions as some 
of the decopods, still some would be very dangerous foes to cope with beneath the 
water. Mr. J. K. Lord saw the arm of an octopus, captured at Vancouver Island, 
which measured 5 feet in length, and was as thick as his wrist; and M. Verany 
has given an account of a specimen which measured 3 metres from tip to tip of 
the outstretched arms. In the account of the molluscs, obtained during the voyage 
of the Samarang, Mr. Adams observes : “ Octopi of enormous size are occasionally 
met with among the islands of the Meia-co-shima group. I measured one, which 
two men were bearing on their shoulders across a pole, and found each arm 
rather more than 2 feet long, giving the creature the power of exploring an area 
of about twelve feet without moving, taking the mouth for a central point, and 
the extremities of the arms to describe the circumference.” 
In 1872 a very large specimen was stranded on the beach in the Bahamas, the 
arms of which were 5 feet long, and the weight was estimated at 200 to 300 lbs. 
The eggs of the Octopus vulgaris when first laid are small, oval, translucent 
granules, resembling grains of rice, not quite the eighth of an inch long. They 
are fixed along and around a common stalk, to which every egg is separately 
attached. These clusters vary in length according to the condition or age of the 
parent; those produced by a young octopus seldom exceeding three inches in 
length, and from twelve to twenty in number; but a large, full-grown female 
will deposit from forty to fifty of such clusters, each about five inches in length. 
In each of these clusters Mr. Lee counted about a thousand ova, so that a 
single octopus may produce at one laying a progeny of from forty to fifty 
thousand. The mother octopus watches, tends, and guards the egg-clusters for 
about fifty days, when the young emerge from the capsules. The sexes differ 
scarcely at all externally, but at the breeding-season a curious modification in the 
third right arm of the male is noticeable. It becomes swollen, and from it a long 
worm-like process is developed, furnished with two rows of sockets (the Hecto- 
cotylus). From the end of this process extends a slender, elongated filament. 
When its owner offers his hand to a female octopus, she not only accepts it, but 
keeps it, for this remarkable outgrowth is then detached from the arm of her 
suitor, and becomes a moving creature, having separate life, and continuing to exist 
for some time after being transferred to her keeping. The lost portion of the 
hectocotylised arm of the male is gradually reproduced, and in due time assumes 
its former appearance. 
A second group of octopods ( Eledone ), which occurs in the Mediterranean and 
also on the British coasts, differs from the common octopus in having but a single 
row of suckers down each arm. In E. moschatus, the body is very changeable in 
form, pouch-like, oval, rounded, or pointed behind, smooth or warty, just as the 
animal likes. The great size of the mantle-opening, which extends a little over the 
back, is also remarkable. It is of a grey, yellow, or yellow-brown colour, with blackish 
spots, and a bluish edge to the web, and is met with on sandy and gravelly bottoms 
at all times of the year, more rarely among rocks. The rapidity with which the 
