The San Francisco call., 1897-01-03
The Octopus Which
the Astorians Saw

hfEOPLE are still talking about the
10 octopus which drifted ashore atTilla-
AS'S nook. The most absurd and prepos-
ferrous stories are current bout its appear
ance, and as no one cared to save it, it
hoated to sea on the next tide after 1t was
stranded and they cannot now be dis.
proved. There is no doubt that it was n
well-d eveloped specimen of the cepha
lopod mollusk, known in Northern Eu-
rope as the kraken, to Hercules as the
Lernean Hydra, to Victor Hugo as the
pieuvre or devil-6sh and to people in gen.
eral as the Octopus vulgaris. 1t has often
been caught on the coast of Vancouver
Island.
1t had small body about as large as
good-sized football and eight arms,
four on each side. These are said by
ignorant observers to have been furnished
with jaws ana teeth; in fact, they were
toothless, but each arm had row OF
suckers, near a hundred in number, sup
pie as leather, tough as steel, cold as
night, which could fasten themselves so
tenaciously to an object that the arm
might be torn off before they detached
their hold. Several hundred such mol
lusks have been caught in the waters OF
this coast, but no case has ever been re-
ported in which they attacked a swimmer
or even corpse.
In Victor Hugo's story, 'The Toilers OF
the Sea-" Gilliott thrust his arm into a
crevice in the rocks and suddenly felt
himself seized. Something slender, rough,
adhesive, chilling and living was twisting
y; IyaA
After desperate struggle he succeeded in
cutting himself free with his knife and
killing the animal. In describing the
modus operandi of the devil-fish in de-
vouring man NJ. Hugo says: You en-
ter into the beast; the hydra Incorporates
with the man; the man is amalgamated
with the hydra. You become one. The
tiger can only devour you; the devil-tish
inhales you. He draws you into him;
bound and helpless you find yourself
slowly emptied into the frightful sac,
which is monster. To be eaten alive is
more than terrible; to be drunk alive is
inexpressible."
In this thrilling description M. Hugo
gives the rein to his Imagination, as is his
wont. The devil-fish does not i'm bibe its
victims by suction, but tears them in
pieces with its powerful beak and deyours
them bit by bit. 1t could no more swal-
low man than the whale swallowed
Jonah, for it's whole body Is half the size
of mans head.
But there is no question of the power of
the octopus to drown a man by holding
him under water wi tn its tentacles. John
K. Ward, in his book ON British Colum-
bia, speaks of one whose arms were i've
feet long and as thick as mans wrist.
1t was almost impossible to detach his
hold from a rock. But the octopus does
not feed On human flesh. Its favorite food
is crabs.
When it gets a crab in a corner, it en-
circles him with its arms and holds him
fast; then it drives its powerful beak
throu, b the creatures shell and picks out
the meat In the Mediterranean the skulls
and bones of drowned men have been
found in the vicinity of rocks which are
known to be inhabited by devil-6sh, and
hence they have been supposed to be man.
eaters. But the corpses had probably
been eaten by crabs, which had fallen
victims to the man-eaters after they had
fattened on human flesh.
AS with some other crustac@a the limbs
er arms of the octopus reproduce them
selves when they are severed from the
body. Among the ancients it was believed
that when driven to desperation by hum
ger the octopus will eat its own arms, but