“My son, my excellent Amphilocus,
Copy the shrewd device o’ the polypus
And make yourself as like as possible
To those whose land you chance to visit.”
M. Hugo poetically alludes to the phosphorescent glow said to be emitted by the octopus in the dark:—
“By night, and especially in the rutting season, it is phosphorescent. Awaiting its spouse, it beautifies, kindles, illuminates itself; and, from the height of some rock, it may be perceived in the profound darkness beneath, blossoming in wan irradiation—a spectre sun.”
I have never been fortunate enough to witness the exhibition of this phosphorescence by the living octopus, although in dead specimens, as is the case with other marine animals, it becomes apparent as soon as decomposition has commenced; but D’Orbigny mentions it, and Mr. Darwin says, “I observed that one which I kept in the cabin was slightly phosphorescent in the dark.”[14] No doubt concerning this can, therefore, exist; for a more competent observer, or more accurate recorder of facts than Mr. Darwin, never put pen to paper.
In his description of the manner in which the devil-fish absorbs its victim, the author of “The Toilers of the Sea” releases his ardent imagination from the few restraining ties by which it was bound to reality. He writes:—
“You enter into the beast, the hydra incorporates itself with the man: the man is amalgamated with the hydra. You become one. The tiger can only devour you; the devil-fish inhales you. He draws you to him, into him; and, bound and helpless, you feel yourself slowly emptied into this frightful sac, which is a monster. To be eaten alive is more than terrible; but to be drunk alive is inexpressible.”
M. Hugo fortunately gives us the means of estimating the size of the body of the octopus which attacked Gilliatt. He tells us that its arms were “nearly a metre (thirty-nine inches) long.” None of quite so great dimensions have, I believe, been found in the English Channel, but it is not impossible that such exist. Granting this, the body of such an octopus would not be very much larger than a soda-water bottle or a Florence-flask, such as olive-oil is sold in: and so the “horrible bag, which is a monster,” and into which you are to be inhaled and drawn alive, is but a small affair after all. The plain truth is, that the octopus and other cephalopods obtain and eat their food very much like the rapacious birds. They are the falcons of the sea. Some of them, like Onychoteuthis, strike their prey with talons and suckers also; others, like the octopus, lay hold of it with suckers alone; but they all tear the flesh with their beaks, and swallow and digest their food in as unromantic a fashion as does hawk or vulture.