The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1899-03-04
CATCHING A DEvILFrsH.

to the BermuuaS, the beautiful Semltrop-
ical islands of the West Indies. A dozen
splendid specimens of the octopus, or dev-
ilfish, which Mr.. Verrill has just presented
to the museum of Yale university are the
results of his novel fishing trip. These
huge sea spiders measure from four to five
feet from tip TO tip and are of a grayish
color. They were black and larger when
Mr.. Verrill caught them, but they shrink
and change color out of water.
Everybody knows what tho devilfish
looks like-a great circle of wriggling
arms attached to a small round body.
When you sec him making his way indo-
lently along the bottom Of the ocean under
your boat, he looks like q huge spider and
seems just about as unpleasant an object
to meet in the water as q big t%arantula
would be in his ~favorito perch at tho top
of a cocoanut tree.
The devilfish Of the West Indies are sci
dom found larger than five feet from tip
to tip, but the natives tell of some very
large ones that measure eight feet across.
The negroes of Bermuda, Mr.. Verrill
says, regard the octopus with great dread
and will not go near him. They would
not think of touching one even after he
had been caught and was quite dead and
harmless in q big bottle of alcohol. They
call him tho 'sscuttle'' and are extremely
careful to keep out of waters that he fire.
quents. To break up a native bathing
party it is only necessary to say "Scuttle!'
and they will come scampering to shore.
The horror that the devilfsh inspires
makes Mr.. Verrill's way of catching him
all the more interesting, for he goes out in
his boat, waits until he spies the long,
wriggling arms of an octopus below him,
jumps overheard, grabs the devil of the
deep in his arms and brings him in tri-
umph to the surface. To dive 90 or 80
feet after one of these ugly creatures-tho
uglicst thing of its size that exists-and
struggle with the bare hands against it III
it's natural element is a feat considerably
ouG of the ordinary. One must dive
straight for the body and endeavor to grab
it from the top. More often than not the
creature will see you coming through the
water and dodge by padding away with
it's long arms. When the dive is made
from behind Mr.. Devil1sh, out of the
range of his piercing, bullying eyes, the
chances are good for catching him.
But you must grasp him firmly with
your hands at his throat, near his beak;
otherwise he may slip away, as he will try
to do at first, or possibly he will strike a
dangerous blow with his strong beak, like
a birds, which he will try to use as soon
as he finds that he is caught. To do this
he tries to turn over and grasp his oppo-
nent with his long, sucking arms to give
him courage. If the divers grip is good,
it is now only a question of rising to the
surface and getting into the boat with the
poor sea devil. This is not a difficult mat
ter, for, while the struggles of the victim
are fierce, he soon tires, and even the sue
ton of his tentacles can be readily over
come.
Everybody that has read about devil
fishes knows of the black fluid chat they
eject when they want to escape. IF the
divers grip is at the right place, he can
choke the octopus and prevent the exit of
this inky substance. But its ink we'll
cannot save it in this battle, and neither
can the slippery arms that wind about its
antagonist and produce an unpleasant and
occasionally painful sensation on his sem
sitive skin. The devilfsh can do nothing
but cling with it's tentacles. They are it's
means of grasping food. The way to be
freed Of the tentacles is by taking them at
the extremity and peeling them off, but
this can only be lone after the deyilfish is
In the boat. The mans fight under water
is confined to holding on with might and
main and paying little heed to the Shiny,
eel like arms, though often their suction
is so strong as to leave black and blue
marks.