THE DREADED OCTOPUS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2998, 8 February 1917, Page 3

THE DREADED OCTOPUS

A LOATHSOME DENIZEN OF THE DEEP

PLENTY IN NEW ZEALAND WATERS (By "Sylvius.") During the last two weeks there has been quite a lot of talk about the octopus, and its prevalence in our waters. The waters of the. harbour appear to be singled out by these loathsome denizens of the deep as a place where "they do most breed and haunt"' at certain times of the .year. Not that this should give any cause for alarm among the people who bathe in increasing numbers on the open beaches_ of the bay and the Strait in the vicinity of Wellington. Had they been very dangerous, as some people imagine who have read Jules A T orne and other highly imaginative writers, there would be on record cases that would establish the existence of a great danger in our waters. Not that it is at all a pleasant* thing to come into contact with one of the long, cold, clinging feelers,-that.sprawl out in;all directions from the round body of the octopus in the reach for food; nor is it wise for anyone to take unnecessary risks in order to give this slimy creature an opportunity of proving his nowers, still at the same time it should be mentioned that there is a, large element of myth in the talcs which have been told of their size and prowess. I remember as a boy being fascinated with the hair-curling story of how a giant cuttle-fish (of which family the New Zealand octopus is a member) clutched the bow of a boat in which a youngster had gone for a row, and towed "him away to sea at an incredible rate of speed, and how the boy had, with the sole aid of a sheath-knife, put up a terrific battle with the monand eventually dispatched it just as his last ounce of strength gave out. It was a lovely story in two senses of fho word. 'Only the other day a person, who lives by the sea, and thereby claims to be an authority, related to mo in all seriousness that a great octopus once climbed up the side of one of the Union Steam Ship: Company's steamers j at sea, and was- only discovered when it began to cuddle one ot the passengers who happened to be dozing on deck. My informant was quite annoyed when I doubted the credibility of the tale. As a matter of fact, tho cuttle or octopus is such a hateful-looking sea monster that it has appealed to the imagination of those writers who love to thrill with out-of-the-way horrors. Few, if any, of the stories of, great cuttles have stood tho test of scientific investigation. The common .cuttle of England undoubtedly grows to a large size, and with its ten arms, toothless suckers, and beak, is a. very formidable creature. The octopus of New Zealand is its cousin. The latter has only eight feelers or tentacles, and has a double row of suckers down each arm, instead of one row, as in tho case of the English cuttle. Furthermore, in' the ease of the.octopus, tho suckers are sessile, instead of stalked, and tho body is round instead of elongated. The-octopus is a deep-sea fish, and generally lurks along tho bottom of the ocean. It cannot swim forward swiftly, but has a rapid backward action, which with its powers of sympathetic colour change, the inky discharge that it makes, and its lurking habits generally indicate that it stalks its prey rather than catches it by its speed. There are those who believe that the octopus lias amphibious qualities, and that it can climb over rocks put of water just as it is said by romancers that-it has been known to clamber up the sides of a steamer. 1 can find no reference outside the pages of romanco to the possession of such powers. It certainly lives' longer out of water than an ordinary fish for one very obvious reason, that the person engaged in slaying tho creature generally attacks it by slashing at its arms or feelers instead of going for ita vitals, which are more or less protected by its writhing arms as long as tho creature is alive. A really wonderful protection for the fish provided by Nature, is its ink bag, from which it can discharge a dark brown fluid that obscures the water for a considerable distance around the octopus, and gives the fish a chance to scilttle for cover from its attackers, for the cuttle are greatly relished as food by many fishes. It is supposed that the height of summer is tho breeding season, when they desert the ocean p depths and seek the warm, shallow waters of the coast, preferably where there are rocks, for tho octopus fixes its eggs on stalks to stones or rocks. Each egg cluster may contain a thousand eggs, and the female may produce from forty to fifty of such clustery in one season. Scarcely a week goes.by at this time of the year without dozens of octopuses being caught by one means or another round about Wellington. They are frequently netted by fishermen that a catch is not worth mentioning. They appear to be plentiful at the entrance to the harbour,- where tho regular Sunday lineushermeu from the different bays will them up frequently. At times they are hooked, and have to be cut away, and at others they seem to suck the bait, swim up with it to the surface, and then slip away. There is no sudden bite with an octopus on a line. The feeling_ to the fingers is just as though a pieco of steak had been hooked. Sometimes on the decked boats they are hauled on board and hacked to death with sheath-knife and boatbut in small boats wher.e there is limited room, and not much margin of safety for movement in the boat, the offending feeler is cut away, and the octopus is permitted to return to its native element dismembered condition. As a precaution children should not bathe amongst the rocks: rather should a safidy beach be sought out, and even then it is unwise to allow children, however expert they may be in the water, to venture out too far. i