The octopus

by Henry Lee

Fig. 2. Sucker of the Octopus.
(O. vulgaris).

The cups themselves, by their internal mechanism for air exhaustion, and consequent pressure of the outer atmosphere, adhere firmly to any substance to which they are applied, whether stone, fish, crustacean, or flesh of man; but in the octopus they have no power to puncture or lacerate the skin, or to cause blood to flow. They are merely pneumatically prehensile organs, by which the animal’s prey is caught and held; not by “harpooning,” as the novelist supposes, but by their atmospheric adhesion to the surface of its body. In this genus the sucking discs are composed of a muscular membrane, the circumference of which is thick and fleshy, and in some species cartilaginous, but in all unarmed, and only adapted to secure close, air-tight contact with any object it may touch. When experimenting on the holding force of an octopus I have allowed it to fix its suckers firmly on my arm and the back of my hand, and by pretending to try to pull them away from its grasp have caused it to exert its utmost power of resistance and retention. The only effect of this has been that the vacuum produced an almost indistinguishable circular mark, corresponding with the edge of the larger discs, and not nearly so distinct as would be caused by the application of a glass tube to the skin, and the partial exhaustion of the air in it by drawing it from the other end by the mouth and tongue. In some of the Cephalopods the outer circle of the cups is a horny ring, sharply serrated or dentated around its edge; and in others—for instance, Onychoteuthis—the centre of each cup is provided with a sharp, strong hook, capable of being extended or sheathed, like the claws of a cat, which is plunged deeply into the flesh of slippery prey for the better security of its hold; but the cuttle-fishes thus furnished are, unlike the octopus, habitually swimmers, instead of rock-crawlers. The sessile arms of the octopods are considerably longer than those of the decapods, or ten-armed cuttle-fishes; but the latter have, in addition to the eight corresponding limbs, two long tentacular arms, which, in some genera, are marvellous in the perfection of their compound apparatus for securing and holding a struggling captive. This arrangement is well suited to their habits and mode of life. Animals purely swimmers, and which hunt and overtake their prey by speed, would be impeded by having to drag after them a bundle of lengthy appendages trailing heavily astern. But a long reach of arm is an advantage, instead of a hindrance, to the octopus; for, although it can swim on occasion, its ordinary habit is, either to rest suspended to the side of a rock, to which it clings with the suckers of several of its arms, in the position shewn in the frontispiece, or to remain lurking in some favourite cranny; its body thrust for protection and concealment well back in the interior of the recess; its bright eyes keenly on the watch; three or four of its limbs firmly attached to the walls of its hiding-place—the others gently waving, gliding, and feeling about in the water, as if to maintain its vigilance, and keep itself always on the alert, and in readiness to pounce on any unfortunate wayfarer that may pass near its den. To small fish, crustacean or mollusc, the slightest contact with even one of those lithe arms is fatal. Instantaneously as pull of trigger brings down a bird, or touch of electric wire explodes a torpedo or a mining fuse, the pistons of the series of suckers are simultaneously drawn inward, the air is removed from the pneumatic holders, and a vacuum created in each; the victim strives to escape; a further retraction of the central part of the disc makes all secure; and, as arm after arm, containing a perfect mitrailleuse of inverted air-guns, takes horrid hold, battery after battery of them is brought to bear, and the pressure of the air is so great that nothing can effect the relaxation of their retentive power but the destruction of the air pump that works them, or the closing of the throttle-valve by which they are connected with it.[12]

Desiring to have a better view than I had previously been able to obtain of that which follows the seizure of a crab by an octopus, I fastened one to a string, by which an attendant was to lower it in the water close to the glass, whilst I stood watching in front. The crab had hardly descended to the depth of two feet before an octopus for which it was not intended, and which I had not observed (so exactly had he assumed the hue of the surface to which he clung), shot out like a rocket from one side of the tank, opened his membranous umbrella, shut up the suspended crab within it, and darted back again to the ledge of rock on which he had been lying in ambush. There he held on, with the crab firmly pressed between his body and the stone work. As this was not what I wished, I directed my assistant to gently try to pull the bait away from him. As soon as he felt the strain, he took a firm grasp of the rock with all the suckers of seven of his arms, and, stretching the eighth aloft, coiled it round the tautened line, the suckers actually closing on the line also, as a caterpillar’s foot gripes a thin twig, or a cobbler’s leather pad folds round his thread when he is making a wax-end. It then became a game of “pull devil, pull baker,” and the “devil-fish” won it. Noticing several jerks on the string, I thought at first they were given by the man overhead, and told him not to use too much force; but he called out, “It’s not me, sir, it’s the octopus: I can’t move him; and he’s pulling so hard that, if I don’t let go, he’ll break the line.” “Hold on, then, and let him break it,” I replied. Tug! tug! dragged the tough, strong arm of the octopus; and at the third tug the line broke, and the crab was all his own. The twine was that used for mending the seine net, and was therefore not particularly weak.

Although this experiment furnished a fresh illustration of the holding power of an octopus, it had not taught me exactly that which I wanted to know. I wished to be underneath that umbrella with the crab, or (which was decidedly preferable) to be able to see what happened beneath it without getting wet. My plan, therefore, was to procure the seizure of the crab against the front glass, instead of against the rock-work. Our next endeavour was successful. A second crab was so fastened that the string could be withdrawn if desired, and was lowered near to a great male octopus, who generally dwelt in a nook in the west front corner of the tank. He was sleepy, and not very hungry, and required a great deal of tempting to rouse him to activity; but the sight of his favourite food overcame his laziness, and, after some demonstrative panting, puffing, and erection of his tubercles, he lunged out an arm to seize the precious morsel. It was withdrawn from his reach; and so, at last, he turned out of bed, rushed at it, and got it under him against the plate-glass, just as I desired. In a second the crab was completely pinioned. Not a movement, not a struggle was visible or possible: each leg, each claw, was grasped all over by suckers—enfolded in them—stretched out to its full extent by them. The back of the carapace was covered all over with the tenacious vacuum-discs, brought together by the adaptable contraction of the limb, and ranged in close order, shoulder to shoulder, touching each other; whilst, between those which dragged the abdominal plates towards the mouth, the black tip of the hard, horny beak was seen for a single instant protruding from the circular orifice in the centre of the radiation of the arms, and, the next, had crunched through the shell, and was buried deep in the flesh of the victim.

The action of an octopus when seizing its prey for its necessary food is very like that of a cat pouncing on a mouse, and holding it down beneath its paws. The movement is as sudden, the scuffle as brief, and the escape of the prisoner even less probable. The fate of the crab is not, really, more terrible than that of the mouse, or of a minnow swallowed by a perch; but there is a repulsiveness about the form, colour, and attitudes of its captor which invests it with a kind of tragic horror.

In the next chapter the author writes:—

“To believe in the existence of the pieuvre one must have seen it. Compared to it the ancient hydras were insignificant. Orpheus, Homer, and Hesiod imagined only the chimæra:—Providence created the devil-fish. If terror was the object of its creation, it is perfection.

“The ‘pieuvre’ has no muscular organisation, no menacing cry, no breast-plate, no horn, no dart, no tail with which to hold or bruise, no cutting fins, or wings with claws, no prickles, no sword, no electric discharge, no venom, no talons, no beak, no teeth.... It has no bones, no blood, no flesh. It is soft and flabby. It is an empty flask; a skin with nothing inside it. Its eight tentacles may be turned inside out, like the fingers of a glove. It has a single orifice, which is both vent and mouth. The same opening performs both functions.”