THE DEVIL FISH

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 123, 20 November 1926, Page 20

THE DEVIL FISH

NOT AS BAD AS HE IB PAINTED.

A great devil-fish, so we road, appeared off Sicily the othor day, and attacked a group of fishermen, who escaped only by chopping off the creature's strangling tentacleii. There have been many stories of a monster squid or octopus, even before Victor Hugo's "Toilers of the Sea." But naturalists have always been rather sceptical, ■writes "A Naturalist" in the "Daily MaiL"

In Mediterranean lands, and even in the Channel Islands, the flesh of a cortain kind of octopus is quite a luxury. The common kinds are used as a fertiliser, and great numbers of the animals are hooked or raked out of the rock crannies at low tides. They may run to 8 or 10 feet in arm span, and are traced to their lairs by tho litter of ihells they leave about. For the octopus is an untidy person and a great crab eater and has an artful way of dealing with his prey. Very much like a spider, he lies in wait in his rock cleft. When a crab comes sidling along the octopus stretches out a long tentacle, very gently grasps the unsuspecting crab or' lobster, .and draws it to his. bosom, where he keeps it, perhaps •with a collection of others, till luncheon1 time. He ia apparently not always hungry, and likes to be able, like Mrs, Gamp, to "put his lips to it when bo disposed." Sometimes, however, he falls upon his victim in the most unmannerly and voracious way—his tablo ■ manners are shocking—tears off it« limbs, and devours its flesh as if he had never had a decent meal before. The octopus has, like many other animals, the power of disguising himself by assuming protective colouring, and it is not always easy to see him, so like / is he to the rock. The giants may be terrible enough. The ordinary sort are not really so terrible as the story writers make out. The French fishers make very short work of them, and even the little girls helping with the nets handle them with a contemptuous nonchalance that shows how little fear a bather need have. In aeep water a big ono might be a serious menace, but the octopus is rarely met with far from a rocky shore. The octopus has a powerful parrot beak and one vulnerable spot, His neck. It is a mere "waist" between head and body. However deadly Ms embrace, a pinch there brings him to reason as no other argument will.