AN OCTOPUS HUNT

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 124, 26 May 1923, Page 21

AN OCTOPUS HUNT

DESCRIBED BY A NATURALIST

SPEARED AND PUT OUT OF : ; action.

When.sseiri at rest in an aquarium tank the large flabby body of the octopus is' bag-shaped; it contracts and expands aa the animal pants heavily. Bound it, cays a writer in the "Australian" Museum Magazine," are curled the long a-rnie, of which the inner sides are beset with a double row of discs, tapering down from the .size of, a shilling at. the basa to the tiniest dot. oh' the tips. Theee are the suckers; when their surface is applied to anything they contract, and by pneumatic action obtain the firmest possible grasp. Below the aims there is on either side a bulging eye with a narrow, slit-like pupil. ; At rest, this octopus imitates in form and colour the ground on which it lies, till it becomes almost, invisible. Around the. entrance of its deu is strewn the refuse of the hunt, heaps of broken shells and bones, for the octopus is a voracious animal which greedily 1 devours fish,, crabs, or cockles.

When the octopus launche» itself in tha water it expands' a large web, like an open umbrella., the ribs formed by the eight anm or-feet, to which its name i'e^ fers. In the centre of tha arms is the. mouth, the point of whese black p^rv rot-lika. beak ri^&s a,bove the lips. The octopus has many, ways of swuru ming; sometimes it rows . it*elf along with the arms for oars, or it spreads' the umbrella web and then darts backwards with a jerk by suddenly turning it,, or the arms may be held, straight aod together while the animal drives backwards by pumping jet* from the ai-. phonal tube. The following accQunt of an octopus hunt, from the pen of that able naturalist,. 3VIr. J. K. Lord, describe th«> octo-. pus as it really is :— "The Indian looks upon the octopus as an alderman does on turtle, and devours it with equal gusto and relish, only the savage roasts the glutinous carcass instead of boiling it.. His mode of catching octopi is crafty in tlie extreme,, for Redskin well knows from past experience that were the .'octopus. once to get some of its large arms over the side of the canoe, and at the same time a holdfast on the wrack, it could as easily haul it over as a child could upset a basket. •Paddling the canoe close to the rocks and quietly puj&hing aside the wrack, the savage, peers through the crystal water, until his practised eye detects an. octopus ..(with its great rope-like arms stiffened out) waiting- patiently for food. His. epear js 12 feet long, armed at the end with four pieces of hard wood, made harder by being baked and charred in the fire; these project about 14 inches beyond the spear haft, each piece having a barb on one side/ and are arranged in a circle round the spear end and lashed firmly on with cedar bark. Having spied out the octopus, the hunter passes the spear carefully through the water, until within a n inch or so of the central disc,: aud then sends it in as deep as he can plunge it.

Writhing with pain and passion, the octopus coils its long arms around the haft. Redskin, making the side of the canoa a fulcrum-for his spear, keeps the struggling monster well off, and raises it to the surface of the water. He is dangerous_ now; if he could get a holdfast on either savage or canoe nothing short of chopping off the arms piecemeal would be of any avail. "But the wily Redskin knows all this, and has taken care to have another spear, unbarhed, long, straight, smooth, and very sharp, and with this he stabs the octopus where the arms joint the centraldisc. I suppose the spear must break down 'the numerous ganglions supplying the. motive power, as the. stabbed arms lose at once strength and tenacity; the suckers, that, a moment before held on with force ten men could not have overcome, relax, and the entire ray hangs like a dead snake, a limp, lifeless mass. And thug ths Indian stabs and stabs until the octopug, . deprived of all power to do harm, is dragged into the canoe, a great inert quivering \]\mp of hl'ownlooking jelly."