Amongst the inhabitants of the sea therein described by him is, as I have said, the Octopus or Polypus, and many of his statements concerning it and its congeners have been remarkably confirmed by recent observations. This animal has, therefore, been long known to naturalists. The ancient Egyptians figured it amongst their hieroglyphics;[1] the Greeks and Romans were well acquainted with it; and since the time of Homer many of the ancient poets and authors have mentioned it in their works.
There is little doubt that the idea of the Lernean Hydra, whose heads grew again when cut off by Hercules, originated from a knowledge of the Octopus. Diodorus relates of it that it had a hundred heads; Simonides says fifty; but the generally received statement is that of Apollodorus, Hyginus, &c., that it had only nine. Reduce the number by one, and we have an animal with eight out-growths from its trunk—the type of an Octopus, which is really capable of rapidly developing afresh, and replacing by new ones, one or all of its eight limbs in case of their being amputated or injured.[2] According to the legend, Hercules dipped his arrow-heads in the gall of the hydra, and, from its poisonous nature, all the wounds he inflicted with them on his enemies proved fatal. It is worthy of notice that the ancients attributed to the Octopus the possession of a similarly venomous secretion. Thus Oppian writes:—
“The crawling preke a deadly juice contains,
Injected poison fires the wounded veins.”
Fishermen have been familiar with this animal from time immemorial; but in modern days, although naturalists have occasionally noted some peculiarities of its structure and habits, public attention was never particularly attracted to it until, within the last few years, Victor Hugo brought it again into notice by the publication of his “Les Travailleurs de la Mer.” Since then it has been constantly exhibited in aquaria, and “Octopus” has become a household word.
THE OCTOPUS.