Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XII.djvu/591

 OCTOPUS 577 wise, by jets from the siphon, which may be turned in any direction ; they can also crawl, looking like tipsy spiders, on their long flexible arms, in the manner shown in the third engra- ving. They are solitary, active, and voracious, seeking their food chiefly at night. They are Common Poulpe (Octopus vulgaris). the polypi of Homer and Aristotle. There are more than 40 species of octopods, found princi- pally in the temperate and tropical seas, though some are met with in cold waters ; they vary in size from an inch to 5 ft. in length of body, the arms being as much more. The common poulpe (0. vulgaris), of the European seas, has the body about as large as the clenched fist, with the arms expanding 3 or 4 ft. The 0. tuberculatm of the Mediterranean has a rough body about 5 in. long, and the arms 20 to 24 in. ; it is often exposed for sale in the markets Octopus tuberculatuB. of Naples and Smyrna. Species of the same size abound in the Pacific, and are eaten in the Hawaiian and other islands, and in the East Indies. In tropical America they grow very large; one was found dead on the beach at Nassau, Bahamas, 10 ft. long, each arm mea- suring more than 5 ft., and estimated to weigh about 250 Ibs. ; and they are believed to exist there even larger than this. In cold waters they are small and not to be feared by man ; but in the tropics, as on the coast of Brazil, the large species are very powerful and dangerous. An Octopus crawling. The common poulpe of the French coast has given rise to the mythical " devil fish " intro- duced by Victor Hugo in the " Toilers of the Sea." The novelist has mixed up a polyp and a poulpe, misled by the name given by Aristotle, and thus manufactured an impossible creature. The kraken of the Scandinavian nations is a mythical immense octopod, for which the re- cent discovery of a gigantic cephalopod on the coast of Newfoundland seems to afford a foun- dation in truth. (See SQUID.) The genus eledone differs from octopus chiefly in having only a single series of suckers on each arm. All the species have an ink bag, by the contents of which the surrounding water is discolored, en- abling them to escape their cetacean and other enemies. For details of structure, see CEPHA- LOPODA. The only species known on the Amer- Octopus Bairdii (life size). ican coast, north of Cape Hatteras, is the one discovered in 1872 in the deep waters of the bay of Fundy by Prof. Verrill, and named by him octopus Bairdii; several, all males, were dredged during that summer in 75 to 200 fath- oms, on shelly, muddy, and sandy bottoms*