Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1867-01-10

hcdUGrS Vi III. lCtOTs IluSoS loiiCIS
of the Sea-" will remember the terrible
narrative Of the fisherman Gilliatt's en-
counter with the octopus or sea-devil, who
winds his horrible suckers round his vic
tim, and gradually draws away his life's
blood. The poetnovelst has been accused
of eXaggeration in this incident, but &C
who has just published in London book
about British Columbia and the
Pacific coast, the sea-devils of
the North Pacific even outdo the terrors of
the Channel species. Mr.. Lord says:
= "The- octopus, as seen on our coasts al
though even here called mansucker by
the fishermen, is a mere Tom Thumb, q
tiny dwarf, as compared to the Brobdig-
nagian proportions he attains in the snug
bays and; long inland canals along the east
side of Vancouver Island, as well as on
the mainland. These places afford lurking
dens, strongholds and natural sea-nurser-
les, where the octopus grows to an enor-
nous size, fattens and wages war with in
.satiable voracity on all and everything it
can catch Safe from heavy breakers, it
lives as in an aquarium of smooth, lake
like water, that, save in the ebbing and
flowing of the tide, knows no change or
disturbance.
"The ordinary resting place of this hid
eous 'sea-beast is under a large stone or in
the wide cleft of rock, where an octopus
can creep and squeeze itself with the flat
ness of sand-dab or the slipperiness of
an eel. Its modes of locomOtiOn are curl
Gus and varied. using the eight arms as
paddles and working them alternately, the
central disk representing boat, Octopi
row themselves along with an ease and &C.
lerity comparable to the many -Oared caique
that glides over the tranquil waters of the
Bosphorus; they can ramble at will over
the sandy roadWays interesting their sub.
marine parks, and converting arms into
legs, march ON like, a huge spider. Gym
nasts of the highest order, they climb the
slippery lodges, as flies walk up a window
pane; attaching the countless suckers that
arm the terrible limbs to the face of the
rock, or to the wrack and sea-weed, they
go about, back downward, like marine
sloths, or, clinging with one arm to. the
waving alga, perform series of trapeze
movements that Leotard might view with
envy. 9H5<t .Hz!E1it5 ItA5tLG
81 have often, when on the rocks in Els
quilnault harbor, watched my friends pro-
ceedings; the water being clear and still,
it is just like peering into an aquarium of
huge proportions, crowded with endless va
rieties of curious sea-monsters; although
grotesque and ugly to look at, yet all alike
displaying the wondrous works of Creative
wisdom In all the cosy little hooks and
corners of the harbor the great seawrack
(Macrocytis) grows wildly, having a
straight round stem that comes up from the
bottom, often with a stalk three hundred
feet long reaching the surface, it spreads
out two long stapering leaves that float
upon the water; this sea forest is the ia
vorite hunting ground of octopi.
81. :. do not think, in his native element,
an octopus often catches prey upon the
ground or on the rocks, but waits for them
yerts itself into web, and fearful web,
too Fastening one arm to a stout stalk,
stiffening out the other seven, one would
hardly know it from the wrack amongst
which it is concealed. Patiently he bides
his time, until presently a shoal of fish
come gaily on, threading their way through
the sea-trees, joyously happy, and little
dreaming that this lurking monster, so art
fully concealed, is close at hand. Two or
three of them rub against the arms Fatal
touch! AS though powerful electric
shock had passed through the fish and sud-
denly knocked it senseless, SO does the arm
of the octopus paralyZe its victim; then,
winding great sucker-clad cable round
the palsied fish--as an elephant winds its
trunk round anything to be conveyed to
the mouth--draws the dainty morsel to the
centre of the disk, where the beaked
mouth seiZes, and soon sucks it in"
BY sort of poetical justice, these tyrants
of the sea-cavers are themselves hunted by
an enemy of untiring pertinacity. The In
dian regards the octopus as great delicacy,
especially when its huge glutinous body is
carefully roasted. Were the octopus once
to get its long thong like feelers over the
side of the canoe, and at the same time re-
tain hold upon the seaWrack, it could as
easily haul it over as q child could bas-
ket. This the crafty Indian well knows.
How he captures him Mr.. Lord thus de-
scribes:
Padding the canoe close to the rocks,
and quietly pushing inside the wrack, the
savage peers through the crystal water,
until his practiced, eye detects an octopus,
with it's great ropelike arms stiffaned out,
waiting patiently for food. His spear is
twelve feet long armed at the end with
four pieces of hard wood, made harder by
being baked and charred in thefire these
project about fourteen inches beyond the
spear-haft, each piece having a barb on one
side, and are arranged in circle round the
spear-end, and laslled firmly on with cedar
bark. Having spied out the octopus, the
hunter passes the spear carefully through
the water until within an inch or so Of the
centre disk, and then sends it in as deep as
he can plunge it.. Writing with pain and
passion, the octopus coils its terrible arms
around the haft the redskin making the
side of his canoe a fulcrum for his spear,
keeps the struggling monster well off, and
rises it torthe surface of the water. He is
dangerous now; if he could get a holdfast
on either savage or canoe, nothing short of
chapping off the arms piecemeal would be
of any avail.
"But the willy redskin knows all this,
and has taken care to have ready another
spear, unbarbed, long, straight, smooth and
very sharp, and with this he stabs the &C.
topus where thearm join the central disk.
1 suppose the spear must break down the
nervous ganglions supplying MOTIVE power,
as the stabbed arm loses at once strength
and tenacity; the suckers that moment
before held ON with force that ten men
could not have overcome, relax, and the
entire ray hangs like dead snake, a limp,
lifeless mass. And thus the Indian stabs,
until the octopus, deprived of all power
to do harm, is dragged into the canoe, a
great, inert, qniveringv lump of brown
looking jelly" = 800
WHAT A PINT OF WHISKY CosT.-Some
years ago, Jonathan Beckwith
a Young lawyer of decided promise, bought
a pint of whisky, and getting drunk wan