Mr. Clemens Laming, in his book, 'The French in Algiers,' writes:—"The soldiers were in the habit of bathing in the sea every evening, and from time to time several of them disappeared—no one knew how. Bathing was, in consequence, strictly forbidden; in spite of which several men went into the water one evening. Suddenly one of them screamed for help, and when several others rushed to his assistance they found that an octopus had seized him by the leg by four of its arms whilst it clung to the rock with the rest. The soldiers brought the 'monster' home with them, and out of revenge they boiled it alive and ate it. This adventure accounted for the disappearance of the other soldiers."
The Rev. W. Wyatt Gill, who for more than a quarter of a century has resided as a missionary amongst the inhabitants of the Hervey Islands, and with whom I had the pleasure of conversing on this subject when he was in England in 1875, described in the Leisure Hour of April 20th, 1872, another mode of attack by which an octopus might deprive a man of life. A servant of his went diving for "poulpes" (octopods), leaving his son in charge of the canoe. After a short time he rose to the surface, his arms free, but his nostrils and mouth completely covered by a large octopus. If his son had not promptly torn the living plaister from off his face he must have been suffocated—a fate which actually befell some years previously a man who foolishly went diving alone.
In Appleton's American Journal of Science and Art, January 31st, 1874, a correspondent describes an attack by an octopus on a diver who was at work on the wreck of a sunken steamer off the coast of Florida. The man, a powerful Irishman, was helpless in its grasp, and would have been drowned if he had not been quickly brought to the surface; for when dragged on to the raft from which he had descended, he fainted, and his companions were unable to pull the creature from its hold upon him until they had dealt it a sharp blow across its baggy body.
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 simultaneously 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.[ [9] ]
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 representations 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 8 inches, are full of vigour. Two of these illustrate in a very interesting manner the subject before us, and by the kindness of Mr. Tegetmeier I am able to give facsimiles of them, which appeared with an article by him on this book, in the Field of March 14th, 1874. [Fig. 5] represents a fisherman in a boat out at sea: a gigantic octopus has thrown one of its arms over the side of the boat; the man, who is alone, has started forward from the stern of the boat, and has succeeded, by means of a large knife attached to a long handle, in lopping off the dangerous limb of his enemy. As Mr. Tegetmeier says, "From the extreme matter of fact manner in which all these engravings are made, and the total absence of exaggeration in any other representation, I cannot but regard the relative sizes of the man, the boat, and the octopus, as correctly given, in which case we have evidence of the existence of gigantic cephalopods in Japanese waters." The only doubt I have is whether the fisherman correctly described his assailant as an octopus, and whether it was not a calamary. [Fig. ]6 is a vivid picture of a fishmonger's shop in a market, under the awning of which may be seen two arms of a gigantic cuttle hung up for sale as food. These are evidently of most unusual size, judging from the action of the lookers on; the one to the left, with a tall stand or case on his back, like a Parisian cocoa-vendor, is holding out his hand in mute astonishment; whilst the attention of the smaller personage in the right-hand corner is directed to the suspended arms of the cuttle by the man nearest to him, who is pointing to them with upraised hand. In another plate in this most interesting work a Japanese mode of fishing for cuttles is delineated. A man in a boat is tossing crabs, one at a time, into the sea, and when a cuttle rises at the bait he spears it with a trident and tosses it into the boat.
