A DENIZEN OF THE GREAT DEEP.

Otago Witness, Issue 2647, 7 December 1904, Page 67

A DENIZEN OF THE GREAT DEEP.

By A Banker

Of all the multdformi varieties of ocean life perhaps ihe most repulsive and' altogether evil-favoured and-repellact of them all is that voracious and uncouth devourer, the octopus. TQie dwarf varieties /vre see in out aquaria, which seldom exceed an extreme length of five or six feet from -tip to tip of tentacle, give some little "idea of their odious suspect and of their unbounded voracity. Ensconced in a" rocky corner of their tank th-ey glare at everything with a-positively wicked: and" murderous expression, -as- if they -were, saturated with vice ' and .depravity, their sinister, blear eyes angrily leering or flashing and scowling witli suppressed wraih. iind mal'.'evoleiice, while their corpulent and imoouth body pulsates and throbs with a laborious ajid.upgainly movement. — But now it is feeding time, and as the prey unwarily approaches the monster its long ten- ] tacles are shot out, and in a moment the deadly sjickers are fixed on the unfortunate creature," -which is dragged down, torn to pieces lay thai grsat horny beak, and devoured. On the co»st of South America giant specimens of these grisly monsters are from time to time captured or thrown up on tlie shore, the tentacles of vhich sxe said in some cases to have attained a length of thirty feet or more; the hideous head and body being yards in circumferenoe. These mighty devourera of the deep have on various occasions been known to have attacked and gorged a man, who if unarmed is utterly helpless in the grip of the monster. "What a scene of horror must be presented by a fight to the death bstwesn a man and one of these soouTges of the ocean. He is perhaps bathing, and. as a measure of precaution and defence against sharks or other voracious! marauders of the dee-p is arnied with a long knife or dagger. Suddenly he finds himself encircled by the slimy tentadles of an octopus 1 , from which it gash, half severing the sarpentiike appendage, frees him. But the animal has numerous arms, and no sooner does the knife release him from one than the slickers of another are fixed upon him. And now th© doomed victim, sis the horny beak is scooping great inouthfuls from him, realises that his sepulchre must be in the ghastly maw of the gruesome nio-nater ■But It is not only in the depths 1 of the ocean that such devonrcrs abound ; for we are told in Holy Writ that tho Evil one is- ever going about seeking whom he may devour; ever striving, though not with terror, as the ootopus, but with seductive axis and .wiles, to

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, entwine his victims in a deadly grip and then to drag them down to perdition. But if the deluded victim crias for help to the God of Heaven, who so loved us that He gave His

Son to die as our ransom aaid substitute, that hellp will never be refused, and mighty angola will be given charge to defend him from all those deadly attacks.