Chapter VI: Part 6

It is a not uncommon occurrence that when an octopus is caught it is found to have one or more of its arms shorter than the rest, and showing marks of having been amputated, and of the formation of a new growth from the old cicatrix. Several such specimens were brought to the Brighton Aquarium whilst I had charge of its Natural History Department. One of them was particularly interesting. Two of its arms had evidently been bitten off about four inches from the base: and out from the end of each healed stump (which in proportion to the length of the limb was as if a man's arm had been amputated halfway between the shoulder and the elbow), grew a slender little piece of newly-formed arm, about as large as a lady's stiletto, or a small button-hook--in fact just the equivalent of worthy Captain Cuttle's iron hook, which did duty for his lost hand. It was an illustrative example of the commencement of the repair and restoration of mutilated limbs.

This mutilation is so common in some localities, that Professor Steenstrup says[70] that almost every octopus he has examined has had one or two arms reproduced; and that he has seen females in which all the eight arms had been lost, but were more or less restored. He also mentions a male in which this was the case as to seven of its arms. He adds that whilst the _Octopoda_ possess the power of reproducing with great facility and rapidity their arms, which are exposed to so many enemies, the _Decapoda_--the _Sepiidae_ and Squids--appear to be incapable of thus repairing and replacing accidental injuries. This is entirely in accord with my own observations.

[70] Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist. August, 1857.

This reparative power is possessed by some other animals, of which the starfishes and crustacea are the most familiar instances. In the case of the lobster or crab, however, the only joint from which new growth can start is that connected with the body, so that if a limb be injured in any part, the whole of it must be got rid of, and the animal has, therefore, the power of casting it off at will. The octopus, on the contrary, is incapable of voluntary dismemberment, but reproduces the lost portion of an injured arm, as an out-growth from the old stump.

The ancients were well acquainted with this reparative faculty of the octopus: but of course the simple fact was insufficient for an imaginative people: and they therefore embellished it with some fancies of their own. There lingers still amongst the fishermen of the Mediterranean a very old belief that the octopus when pushed by hunger will gnaw and devour portions of its arms. Aristotle knew of this belief, and positively contradicted it; but a fallacy once planted is hard to eradicate. You may cut it down, and apparently destroy it, root and branch, but its seeds are scattered abroad, and spring up elsewhere, and in unexpected places. Accordingly, we find Oppian, more than five centuries later, disseminating the same old notion, and comparing this habit of the animal with that of the bear obtaining nutriment from his paws by sucking them during his hybernation.

"When wintry skies o'er the black ocean frown,
And clouds hang low with ripen'd storms o'ergrown,
Close in the shelter of some vaulted cave
The soft-skinn'd prekes[71] their porous bodies save.
But forc'd by want, while rougher seas they dread,
On their own feet, necessitous, are fed.
But when returning spring serenes the skies,
Nature the growing parts anew supplies.
Again on breezy sands the roamers creep,
Twine to the rocks, or paddle in the deep.
Doubtless the God whose will commands the seas,
Whom liquid worlds and wat'ry natives please,
Has taught the fish by tedious wants opprest
Life to preserve and be himself the feast."

[71] The octopus is still called the "preke" in some parts of
England, notably in Sussex. The translation of Oppian's
'Halieutics,' from which this passage and others are quoted is that
by Messrs. Jones and Diaper, of Baliol College, Oxford, and was
published in 1722.

The fact is, that the larger predatory fishes regard an octopus as very acceptable food, and there is no better bait for many of them than a portion of one of its arms. Some of the cetacea also are very fond of them, and whalers have often reported that when a "fish" (as they call it) is struck it disgorges the contents of its stomach, amongst which they have noticed parts of the arms of cuttles which, judging from the size of their limbs, must have been very large specimens. The food of the sperm whale consists largely of the gregarious squids, and the presence in spermaceti of their undigested beaks is accepted as a test of its being genuine. That old fish-reptile, the Ichthyosaurus, also, preyed upon them; and portions of the horny rings of their suckers were discovered in its coprolites by Dean Buckland. Amongst the worst enemies of the octopus is the conger. They are both rock-dwellers, and if the voracious fish come upon his cephalopod neighbour unseen, he makes a meal of him, or, failing to drag him from his hold, bites off as much of one or two of his arms as he can conveniently obtain. The conger, therefore, is generally the author of the injury which the octopus has been unfairly accused of inflicting on itself.

Continuing our comparison with the hydra, we have in the octopus an animal capable of quitting its rocky lurking-place in the sea, and going on a buccaneering expedition on dry land. Many incidents have been related in connection with this; but I can attest it from my own observation. I have seen an octopus travel over the floor of a room at a very fair rate of speed, toppling and sprawling along in its own ungainly fashion; and in May, 1873, we had one at the Brighton Aquarium which used regularly every night to quit its tank, and make its way along the wall to another tank at some distance from it, in which were some young lump-fishes. Day after day, one of these was missing, until, at last, the marauder was discovered. Many days elapsed, however, before he was detected, for after helping himself to, and devouring a young "lump-sucker," he demurely returned before daylight to his own quarters.

Of this habit of the octopus the ancients were, also, fully aware. Aristotle wrote that it left the water and walked in stony places, and Pliny and AElian related tales of this animal stealing barrels of salt fish from the wharves, and crushing their staves to get at the contents. An octopus that could do this would be as formidable a predatory monster as the Lernean Hydra, which had the evil reputation of devouring the Peloponnesian cattle.

Whoever first described the counter-attack of the Hydra on Hercules must have had the octopus in his thoughts. "It twisted itself round one of his feet"--exactly that which an octopus would do.

_From Smith's 'Classical Dictionary.'_]

Finally, according to the legend, Hercules dipped his arrow-heads in the gall of the Hydra, and, from its poisonous nature, all the wounds he inflicted with them upon his enemies proved fatal. It is worthy of notice that the ancients attributed to the octopus the possession of a similarly venomous secretion. Thus Oppian writes:

"The crawling preke a deadly juice contains
Injected poison fires the wounded veins."

The accompanying illustration (Fig. 23) of Hercules slaying the Hydra is taken from a marble tablet in the Vatican. It will be immediately seen how closely the Hydra, as there depicted, resembles an octopus. The body is elongated, but the eight necks with small heads on them bear about the same proportion to the body as the arms to the body of an octopus.

The Reverend James Spence, in his 'Polymetis,' published in 1755, gives a figure, almost the counterpart of this, copied from an antique gem, a carnelian, in the collection of the Grand Duke of Tuscany at Florence. Only seven necks of the hydra are, however, there visible, and there are two coils in the elongated body. On the upper part are two spots which have been supposed to represent breasts. This was probably intended by the artificer; but that the idea originated from a duplication of the syphon tube is evident from the figures (Figs. 21, 22) of the octopus on the smaller gold ornaments found by Dr. Schliemann at Mycenae. In the same work is also an engraving from a picture in the Vatican Virgil, entitled 'The River, or Hateful Passage into the Kingdom of Ades,' wherein an octopus-hydra, of which only six heads and necks are shown, is one of the monsters called by the author "Terrors of the Imagination."

SCYLLA AND CHARYBDIS.

In the description given by Homer, in the twelfth book of the 'Odyssey,' of the unfortunate nymph Scylla, transformed by the arts of Circe into a frightful monster, the same typical idea as in the case of the Hydra is perceptible. The lurking octopus, having its lair in the cranny of a rock, watching in ambush for passing prey, seizing anything coming within its reach with one or more of its prehensile arms, even brandishing these fear-inspiring weapons out of water in a threatening manner, and known in some localities to be dangerous to boats and their occupants, is transformed into a many-headed sea monster, seizing in its mouths, instead of by the adhesive suckers of its numerous arms, the helpless sailors from passing vessels, and devouring them in the abysses of its cavernous den.

Circe, prophesying to Ulysses the dangers he had still to encounter, warned him especially of Scylla and Charybdis, within the power of one of whom he must fall in passing through the narrow strait (between Italy and Sicily) where they had their horrid abode. Describing the lofty rock of Scylla, she tells him:

"Full in the centre of this rock displayed
A yawning cavern casts a dreadful shade,
Nor the fleet arrow from the twanging bow
Sent with full force, could reach the depth below.
Wide to the west the horrid gulf extends,
And the dire passage down to hell descends.
O fly the dreadful sight! expand thy sails,
Ply the strong oar, and catch the nimble gales;
Here Scylla bellows from her dire abodes;
Tremendous pest! abhorred by man and gods!
Hideous her voice, and with less terrors roar
The whelps of lions in the midnight hour.
Twelve feet deformed and foul the fiend dispreads;
Six horrid necks she rears, and six terrific heads;

* * * * *

When stung with hunger she embroils the flood,
The sea-dog and the dolphin are her food;
She makes the huge leviathan her prey,
And all the monsters of the wat'ry way;
The swiftest racer of the azure plain
Here fills her sails and spreads her oars in vain;
Fell Scylla rises, in her fury roars,
At once six mouths expands, at once six men devours."[72]

[72] Homer's 'Odyssey,' Pope's Translation, Book XII.

Circe then describes the perils of the whirling waters of Charybdis as still more dreadful; and, admonishing Ulysses that once in her power all must perish, she advises him to choose the lesser of the two evils, and to

"shun the horrid gulf, by Scylla fly;
'Tis better six to lose than all to die."

Ulysses continues his voyage; and as his ship enters the ominous strait,

"Struck with despair, with trembling hearts we viewed
The yawning dungeon, and the tumbling flood;
When, lo! fierce Scylla stooped to seize her prey,
Stretched her dire jaws, and swept six men away.
Chiefs of renown! loud echoing shrieks arise;
I turn, and view them quivering in the skies;
They call, and aid, with outstretched arms, implore,
In vain they call! those arms are stretched no more.
As from some rock that overhangs the flood,
The silent fisher casts th' insidious food;
With fraudful care he waits the finny prize,
And sudden lifts it quivering to the skies;
So the foul monster lifts her prey on high,
So pant the wretches, struggling in the sky;
In the wide dungeon she devours her food,
And the flesh trembles while she churns the blood."

THE "SPOUTING" OF WHALES.

One of the sea-fallacies still generally believed, and accepted as true, is that whales take in water by the mouth, and eject it from the spiracle, or blow-hole.

The popular ideas on this subject are still those which existed hundreds of years ago, and which are expressed by Oppian in two passages in his 'Halieutics':

"Uncouth the sight when they in dreadful play
Discharge their nostrils and refund a sea,"

and

"While noisy fin-fish let their fountains fly
And spout the curling torrent to the sky."

Eminent zoologists and intelligent observers, who have had full opportunities of obtaining practical knowledge of the habits of these great marine mammals, have forcibly combated and repeatedly contradicted this erroneous idea; but their sensible remarks have been read by few, in comparison with the numbers of those to whom a wrong impression has been conveyed by sensational pictures in which whales are represented _with their heads above the surface_, and throwing up from their nostrils columns of water, like the fountains in Trafalgar Square. One can hardly be surprised that the old writers on Natural History were unacquainted with the real composition of the whale's "spout." Those of them who sought for any original information on marine zoology, obtained it chiefly from uninstructed and superstitious fishermen; but they generally contented themselves with diligent compilation, and thus copied and transmitted the errors of their predecessors, with the addition of some slight embellishments of their own. Accordingly, we find Olaus Magnus[73] describing, as follows, the _Physeter_, or, as his translator, Streater, calls it, the _Whirlpool_. "The _Physeter_ or _Pristis_," he says, "is a kind of whale, two hundred cubits long, and is very cruel. For, to the danger of seamen, he will sometimes raise himself above the sail-yards, and casts such floods of waters above his head, which he had sucked in, that with a cloud of them he will often sink the strongest ships, or expose the mariners to extreme danger. This beast hath also a large round mouth, like a lamprey, whereby he sucks in his meat or water, and by his weight cast upon the fore or hinder deck, he sinks and drowns a ship."

[73] 'Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus,' lib. xxi. cap. vi.
A.D. 1555.

Figures 24 and 25 (p. 64) are facsimiles of the illustrations which accompany the above description. It will be seen that, in the first, the _Physeter_ is depicted as uprearing a maned neck and head, like that of a fabled dragon; whilst in Fig. 25 it is shown as a whale flinging itself on board a ship, which is sinking under its ponderous weight. In both, torrents of water are issuing from its head, and it is evident that they are merely exaggerated misrepresentations of the "spouting" of whales.

Gesner copies many of Olaus Magnus's illustrations, and improves upon Fig. 25 by putting a numerous crew on board the ship. The unfortunate sailors are depicted in every attitude of terror and despair, and seem to be incapacitated from any attempt to save themselves by the flood of water which the whale is deliberately pouring upon them from its blow-holes.

These old pictures appear, no doubt, ridiculous, but they are, really, very little more absurd and untrue to nature than many of those which disfigure some otherwise useful books on Natural History of the present day. I could refer to several, in which whales are represented as spouting from their blow-holes one or more columns of water, which, after ascending skyward to a considerable distance, fall over gracefully as if issuing from the nozzle of an ornamental fountain. I select one from amongst them (Fig. 26), not with any disrespect for the artist, author, or publisher of the work from which it is taken, but because, whilst it shows correctly the position of the blow-hole of the sperm whale, it also exhibits exactly that which I wish to confute. The publishers of the valuable work in which this picture appeared have generously consented to my reproducing it here.

When, in describing, in 1877, the White Whale then exhibited at the Westminster Aquarium, I said that whales do not spout water out of their blow-holes, and that the idea that they do so is a popular error, the statement was so contrary to generally-accepted notions that I was not surprised by receiving more than one letter on the subject. One very reasonable suggestion made to me was that, although the lesser whales, such as the porpoises, which I had had opportunities of watching in confinement at Brighton for two years, and the _Beluga_, which had been observed for a similar period at the New York Aquarium, and also at Westminster, did not "spout," the respiratory apparatus of the larger whales might be so modified as to permit them to do so. Let us consider the construction of the breathing apparatus which would have to be thus modified, as shown in the porpoise.

In the first place, there is a pair of lungs as perfect as those of any land mammal, fitted to receive air, and to bring the hot blood into contact with the air, that it may absorb the oxygen of the air, and so be purified. But this air cannot well be breathed through the mouth of an animal which has to take its food from and in water; so it has to be inhaled only by the nostrils. If these were situated as they are in land mammals, near the extremity of the nose, the porpoise would be obliged to stop when pursuing its prey, or, escaping from its enemies, to put the tip of its nose above the surface of the water every time it required to breathe. A much more convenient arrangement has, therefore, been provided for it, and for almost all whales, by which that difficulty is removed. Instead of running along the bones of the nose, the nostrils are placed on the top of the head, and the windpipe is turned up to them without having any connection with the palate. The upper jaw is quite solid. Thus the mouth is solely devoted to the reception of food, and the animal is enabled to continue its course when swimming, however rapidly, by rising obliquely to the surface, and exposing the top of its head above it. On the blow-hole being opened, the air, from which the oxygen has been absorbed, is expelled in a sudden puff, another supply is instantaneously inhaled, and rushes into the lungs with extreme velocity, and then the porpoise can either descend into the depths, or remain with its spiracle exposed to the air, as it may prefer. In this act of breathing the spiracle is normally brought above the water, the breath escapes, and the immediate inhalation is effected almost in silence. But frequently, and in some whales habitually, the blow-hole is opened just below the surface, and then the outrush of air causes a splash upwards of the water overlying it.

I may here mention that I have frequently seen the porpoises at the Brighton Aquarium lying asleep at the surface, with the blow-hole exposed above it, breathing automatically, and without conscious effort. Aristotle was acquainted with this habit of the cetacea 2,200 years ago, for he wrote: "They sleep with the blow-hole, their organ of respiration, elevated above the water."

The apparatus for closing the blow-hole, so that not a drop of water shall enter the windpipe, even under great pressure, is a beautiful contrivance, complex in its structure, yet most simple in its working. The external aperture is covered by a continuation of the skin, locally thickened, and connected with a conical stopper, of a texture as tough as india-rubber, which fits perfectly into a cone or funnel formed by the extremity of the windpipe, and closes more and more firmly as the pressure upon it is increased. Whilst the orifice is thus guarded, the lower end of the tube is surrounded by a strong compressing muscle, which clasps also the glottis, and thus the passage from the blow-hole to the lungs is completely stopped.

There is nothing in this which indicates the possibility of the spouting of water from the nostrils; but as assertions that water had been seen to issue from them were positive and persistent, anatomists seem to have felt themselves obliged to try to account for it somehow. Accordingly the theory was propounded by F. Cuvier that the water taken into the mouth is reserved in two pouches (one on each side), until the whale rises to blow, when, the gullet being closed, it is forced by the action of the tongue and jaws through the nasal passages, somewhat as a smoker occasionally expels the smoke of his cigar through his nostrils. Although these pouches, or sacs analogous to them, are found at the base of the nostrils of the horse, tapir, etc.,--animals which do not "spout" from the nostrils water taken in by the mouth--the explanation was accepted for a time.

Mr. Bell held this opinion when the first edition of his 'British Quadrupeds' was published in 1837, but before the issue of the second edition, in 1874, he had found reasons for taking a different view of the matter; and, under the advice of his judicious editors, Mr. Alston, and Professor Flower (the latter of whom supervised the proofs of the chapters on the Cetacea) his sanction of the illusion was withdrawn as follows:--"The results of more recent and careful observations, amongst which we may notice those of Bennett, Von Baer, Sars and Burmeister, are directly opposed to the statement that water is thus ejected; and there can now be no doubt that the appearance which has given rise to the idea is caused by the moisture with which the expelled breath is supercharged, which condenses at once in the cold outer air, and forms a cloud or column of white vapour. It is possible indeed that if the animal begins to 'blow' before its head is actually at the surface, the force of the rushing air may drive up some little spray along with it, but this is quite different from the notion that water is really expelled from the nasal passages. We may add that on the only occasion when we ourselves witnessed the 'spouting' of a large whale we were much struck with its resemblance to the column of white spray which is dashed up by the ricochetting ball fired from one of the great guns of a man-of-war."

The simile is admirable, and nothing could better describe the appearance of a whale's "spout"; but, in the previous portion of the passage (except with reference to the sperm whale, the nostrils of which are not on the top of the head), I think sufficient importance is not conceded to the volume of water propelled into the air by the outrush of breath from the submerged blow-hole. I do not know how many cubic feet of air the lungs of a great whale are capable of containing, but the quantity is sufficient to force up to a height of several feet the water above the valve when the latter is opened, not only in "some little spray," but, for some distance in a good solid jet--enough, in fact, to give the appearance of its actually issuing from the blow-hole, and to account for the erroneous belief of sailors that it does so. It must be remembered that the escape of air is not by a prolonged wheeze, but by a sudden blast, and thus when the spiracle is opened just beneath the surface, an instant before it is uncovered to take in a fresh supply of air, the water above its orifice is thrown up as by a slight subaqueous explosion, or as by the momentary opening under water of the safety-valve of a steam boiler. Some idea of the force and volume of the blast of air from the lungs of even the common porpoise may be formed when I mention that one of the porpoises at the Brighton Aquarium, happening to open its spiracle just beneath an illuminating gas jet fixed over its tank, blew out the light.

In the sperm whale the nostrils are placed near the extremity of the nose, and therefore this whale has to raise its snout above the surface when it requires to breathe; but instead of this being necessary, as in the case of the porpoise twice or thrice in a minute, the sperm whale only rises to "blow" at intervals of from an hour to an hour and twenty minutes. Mr. Beale says[74] that in a large bull sperm whale the time consumed in making one expiration and one inspiration is ten seconds, during six of which the nostril is beneath the surface of the water--the expiration occupying three seconds, and the inspiration one second. At each breathing time this whale makes from sixty to seventy expirations, and remains, therefore, at the surface ten or eleven minutes, and then, raising its tail, it descends perpendicularly, head first. In different individuals the time required for performing these several acts varies; but in each they are minutely regular, and this well-known regularity is of considerable use to the fishers, for when a whaler has once noticed the periods of any particular whale which is not alarmed, he knows to a minute when to expect it to come to the surface, and how long it will remain there. The "spout" of the sperm whale differs much from that of other whales. Unlike, for instance, the straight perpendicular twin jets of the "right whale," the single, forward-slanting "spout" of the sperm whale presents a thick curled bush of white mist. Each whale has a different mode and time of breathing, and the form of the "spout" differs accordingly.

[74] 'Natural History of the Sperm Whale.' Van Voorst, 1839.

It is said that the blowing of the _Beluga_, or "White Whale," is not unmusical at sea, and that when it takes place under water it often makes a peculiar sound which might be mistaken for the whistling of a bird. Hence is derived one of the names given to this whale by sailors--the "Sea-canary." Though I have had opportunities of attentively watching the breathing and other actions in captivity of two specimens of this whale I have never been able to detect the sound alluded to.

Besides the opinions cited by Mr. Bell concerning whales spouting water from their blow-holes, we have other evidence which is most clear and definite, and which ought to be convincing.

We will take first that of Mr. Beale, who as surgeon on board the "Kent" and "Sarah and Elizabeth," South Sea whalers, passed several seasons amongst sperm whales. He says:--"I can truly say when I find myself in opposition to these old and received notions, that out of the thousands of sperm whales which I have seen during my wanderings in the South and North Pacific Oceans, I have never observed one of them to eject a column of water from the nostril. I have seen them at a distance, and I have been within a few yards of several hundreds of them, and I never saw water pass from the spout-hole. But the column of thick and dense vapour which is certainly ejected is exceedingly likely to mislead the judgment of the casual observer in these matters; and this column does indeed appear very much like a jet of water when seen at the distance of one or two miles on a clear day, because of the condensation of the vapour which takes place the moment it escapes from the nostril, and its consequent opacity, which makes it appear of a white colour, and which is not observed when the whale is close to the spectator. It then appears only like a jet of white steam. The only water in addition is the small quantity that may be lodged in the external fissure of the spout hole, when the animal raises it above the surface to breathe, and which is blown up into the air with the 'spout,' and may probably assist in condensing the vapour of which it is formed.... I have been also very close to the _Balaena mysticetus_ (the Greenland, or Right whale) when it has been feeding and breathing, and yet I never saw even that animal differ in the latter respect from the sperm whale in the nature of the spout.... If the weather is fine and clear, and there is a gentle breeze at the time, the spout may be seen from the masthead of a moderate-sized vessel at the distance of four or five miles."

Captain Scoresby, who was a veteran and successful whaler, a good zoologist, and a highly intelligent observer, says:--"A moist vapour mixed with mucus is discharged from the nostrils when the animal breathes; but no water accompanies it unless an expiration of the breath be made under the surface."

Dr. Robert Brown, who communicated to the Zoological Society, in May, 1868, a valuable series of observations on the mammals of Greenland, made during his voyages to the Spitzbergen, Iceland, and Jan Mayen Seas, and along the eastern and western shores of Davis's Strait and Baffin's Bay to near the mouth of Smith's Sound, remarks, in a chapter on the Right whale (_Balaena mysticetus_):--"The 'blowing,' so familiar a feature of the _Cetacea_, but especially of the _Mysticetus_ is, quite analogous to the breathing of the higher mammals, and the blow-holes are the homologues of the nostrils. It is most erroneously stated that the whale ejects water from the blow-holes. I have been many times only a few feet from a whale when 'blowing,' and, though purposely observing it, could never see that it ejected from its nostrils anything but the ordinary breath--a fact which might almost have been deduced from analogy. In the cold arctic air this breath is generally condensed, and falls upon those close at hand in the form of a dense spray which may have led seamen to suppose that this vapour was originally ejected in the form of water. Occasionally, when the whale blows just as it is rising out of or sinking in the sea, a little of the superincumbent water may be forced upwards by the column of breath. When the whale is wounded in the lungs, or in any of the blood-vessels immediately supplying them, blood, as might be expected, is ejected in the death-throes along with the breath. When the whaleman sees his prey 'spouting red,' he concludes that its end is not far distant; it is then mortally wounded."

Captain F. C. Hall, the commander of the unfortunate "Polaris" Expedition, thus describes, in his 'Life with the Esquimaux,' the spout of a whale:--"What this blowing is like," he says, "may be described by asking if the reader has ever seen the smoke produced by the firing of an old-fashioned flint-lock. If so, then he may understand the 'blow' of a whale--a flash in the pan and all is over."

Captain Scammon, an experienced American whaling captain, who, like Scoresby, could wield well both harpoon and pen, in his fine work on 'The Marine Mammals of the North-Western Coast of America,' writes to the same effect.

Mr. Herman Melville, who is not a naturalist, but has served before the mast in a sperm-whaler and borne his part in all the hardships and dangers of the chase, writes, in his remarkable book, 'The Whale':--"As for this 'whale-spout' you might almost stand in it, and yet be undecided as to what it is precisely. Nor is it at all prudent for the hunter to be over curious respecting it. For, even when coming into slight contact with the outer vapoury shreds of the jet, which will often happen, your skin will feverishly smart from the acrimony of the thing so touching you. And I know one who, coming into still closer contact with the spout--whether with some scientific object in view or otherwise I cannot say--the skin peeled off from his cheek and arm. Wherefore, among whalemen, the spout is deemed poisonous; they try to evade it. I have heard it said, and I do not much doubt it, that if the jet were fairly spouted into your eyes it would blind you."

The only other eye-witness I will cite is Mr. Bartlett, of the Zoological Gardens, whose experience and accuracy as an observer of the habits of animals is unsurpassed. He spent an autumn holiday in accompanying the late Mr. Frank Buckland and his colleagues, Messrs. Walpole and Young, in a tour of inquiry into the condition of the herring fishery in Scotland. When the commissioners left Peterhead, he remained there for a few days as the guest of Captain David Gray, of the steam whaler, "Eclipse," and as it was reported that large whales had been seen in the offing, his host invited him to go in search of them, and pay them a visit in his steam-launch. When about twelve miles out, they saw the whales, which were "finners," at a distance of four or five miles. Fourteen were counted--all large ones--some of which were seventy feet in length. On approaching them the captain shut off steam, and the launch was allowed to float in amongst them. So close were they to the boat that it would not have been difficult to jump upon the back of one of them had that been desirable. Mr. Bartlett tells me that he was greatly astonished by the immense force of the sudden outrush of air from their blow-holes, and the noise by which it was accompanied. He believes that the blast was strong enough to blow a man off the spiracle if he were seated on it. He authorizes me to say that having seen and watched these whales under such favourable circumstances, he entirely agrees with all that I have here written concerning the so-called "spout." The volume of hot, vaporous breath expelled is enormous, and this is accompanied by no small quantity of water, forced up by it when the blow-hole is opened below the surface.

An effect similar in appearance to the whale's spout is produced by the breathing of the hippopotamus. When this great beast opens its nostrils beneath the surface, water and spray are driven and scattered upward by the force of the air, but, of course, do not issue from the nasal passages. I have, also, seen this effect produced, though in a less degree, by the breathing of sea-lions.

I repeat, therefore, that not a drop of sea-water enters or passes out of the blow-hole of a whale. If the spiracle valve were in a condition to allow it to do so the animal would soon be drowned. Everyone knows the extreme irritation and the horrible feeling of suffocation caused to a human being, whilst eating or drinking, by a crumb or a little liquid "going the wrong way"--that is, being accidentally drawn to the air-passages instead of passing to the oesophagus. If water were to enter the bronchi of a whale it would instantly produce similar discomfort.

The neck of a popular error is hard to break; but it is time that one so palpable as that concerning the "spouting" of whales should cease to be promulgated and disseminated by fanciful illustrations of instructive books.

THE "SAILING" OF THE NAUTILUS.

One of the prettiest fables of the sea is that relating to the Paper Nautilus, the constructor and inhabitant of the delicate and beautiful shell which looks as if it were made of ivory no thicker than a sheet of writing paper.

It is an old belief that in calm weather it rises from the bottom of the sea, and, elevating its two broadly-expanded arms, spreads to the gentle air, as a sail, the membrane, light as a spider's web, by which they are united; and that, seated in its boat-like shell, it thus floats over the smooth surface of the ocean, steering and paddling with its other arms. Should storm arise or danger threaten, its masts and sail are lowered, its oars laid in, and the frail craft, filling with water, sinks gently beneath the waves.

When and where this picturesque idea originated I am unable to discover. It dates far back beyond the range of history; for Aristotle mentions it, and, unfortunately, sanctioned it. With the weight of his honoured name in its favour, this fallacy has maintained its place in popular belief, even to our own times; for the mantle of the great father of natural history, who was generally so marvellously correct, fell on none of his successors; Pliny, and AElian, and the tribe of compilers who succeeded them, having been more concerned to make their histories sensational than to verify their statements.

Naturally, the Paper Nautilus has been the subject of many a poet's verses. Oppian wrote of it in his 'Halieutics':--

"Sail-fish in secret, silent deeps reside,
In shape and nature to the preke[75] allied;
Close in their concave shells their bodies wrap,
Avoid the waves and every storm escape.
But not to mirksome depths alone confined;
When pleasing calms have stilled the sighing wind,
Curious to know what seas above contain,
They leave the dark recesses of the main;
Now, wanton, to the changing surface haste,
View clearer skies, and the pure welkin taste.
But slow they, cautious, rise, and, prudent, fear
The upper region of the watery sphere;
Backward they mount, and as the stream o'erflows,
Their convex shells to pressing floods oppose.
Conscious, they know that, should they forward move,
O'erwhelming waves would sink them from above,
Fill the void space, and with the rushing weight,
Force down th' inconstants to their former seat.
When, first arrived, they feel the stronger blast,
They lie supine and skim the liquid waste.
The natural barks out-do all human art
When skilful floaters play the sailor's part.
Two feet they upward raise, and steady keep;
These are the masts and rigging of the ship:
A membrane stretch'd between supplies the sail,
Bends from the masts, and swells before the gale.
Two other feet hang paddling on each side,
And serve for oars to row and helm to guide.
'Tis thus they sail, pleased with the wanton game,
The fish, the sailor, and the ship, the same.
But when the swimmers dread some dangers near
The sportive pleasure yields to stronger fear.
No more they, wanton, drive before the blasts,
But strike the sails, and bring down all the masts;
The rolling waves their sinking shells o'erflow,
And dash them down again to sands below."

[75] The octopus.

Montgomery also thus exquisitely paraphrases the same idea in his 'Pelican Island':--

"Light as a flake of foam upon the wind,
Keel upwards, from the deep emerged a shell,
Shaped like the moon ere half her orb is filled.
Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose,
And moved at will along the yielding water.
The native pilot of this little bark
Put out a tier of oars on either side,
Spread to the wafting breeze a twofold sail,
And mounted up, and glided down, the billows
In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air,
And wander in the luxury of light."

Byron mentions the Nautilus in his 'Mutiny of the Bounty' as follows:--

"The tender Nautilus, who steers his prow,
The sea-born sailor of his shell canoe,
The ocean Mab--the fairy of the sea,
Seems far less fragile, and alas! more free.
He, when the lightning-winged tornadoes sweep
The surge, is safe: his port is in the deep;
And triumphs o'er the armadas of mankind
Which shake the world, yet crumble in the wind."

The very names by which this animal is known to the science which some persons erroneously think must be so hard and dry are poetic. In Aristotle's day it was called the _Nautilus_ or _Nauticus_, "the mariner," and though two thousand two hundred years have passed since the great master wrote, the name still clings to it. As the Pearly Nautilus, a very different animal, also bears that name, Gualtieri perceived the necessity of distinguishing the Paper Nautilus from it, and was followed by Linnaeus, who therefore entitled the genus to which the latter belongs, _Argonauta_, after the ship _Argo_, in which Jason and his companions sailed to Colchis to carry off the "Golden Fleece" suspended there in the temple of Mars, and guarded by brazen-hoofed bulls, whose nostrils breathed out fire and death, and by a watchful dragon that never slept. According to the Greek legend, the _Argo_ was named after its builder Argus, the son of Danaus, and was the first ship that ever was built. Oppian ('Halieutics,' book I.) expresses his opinion that the Nautilus served as a model for the man who first conceived the idea of constructing a ship, and embarking on the waters:--

"Ye Powers! when man first felled the stately trees,
And passed to distant shores on wafting seas,
Whether some god inspired the wondrous thought,
Or chance found out, or careful study sought;
If humble guess may probably divine,
And trace th' improvement to the first design,
Some wight of prying search, who wond'ring stood
When softer gales had smoothed the dimpled flood,
Observed these careless swimmers floating move,
And how each blast the easy sailor drove;
Hence took the hint, hence formed th' imperfect draught,
And ship-like fish the future seaman taught.
Then mortals tried the shelving hull to slope,
To raise the mast, and twist the stronger rope,
To fix the yards, let fly the crowded sails,
Sweep through the curling waves, and court auspicious gales."

Pope, too, in his 'Essay on Man' (Ep. 3), adopted the idea in his exhortation--

"Learn of the little Nautilus to sail,
Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale."

Poetry, like the wizard's spell, can make

"A nutshell seem a gilded barge,
A sheeling seem a palace large,"

but the equally enchanting wand of science is able by a touch to dispel the illusion, and cause the object to appear in its true proportions. So with the fiction of the "Paper Sailor."

I have elsewhere described the affinities of the Nautili and their place in nature, therefore it will only be necessary for me here to allude to these very briefly, to explain the great and essential difference that exists between the two kinds of Nautilus which are popularly regarded as being one and the same animal.

The _Pearly_ Nautilus (_Nautilus pompilius_) and the Argonaut, which from having a fragile shell of somewhat similar external form is called the _Paper_ Nautilus, both belong to that great primary group of animals known as the _Mollusca_, and to the class of it called the _Cephalopoda_, from their having their head in the middle of that which is the foot in other mollusks. In the Cephalopoda the foot is split or divided into eight segments in some families, and in others into ten segments, which radiate from the central head, like so many rays. These rays are not only used as feet, but, being highly flexible, are adapted for employment also as prehensile arms, with which their owner captures its prey, and they are rendered more perfect for this purpose by being furnished with suckers which hold firmly to any surface to which they are applied. The Cephalopods which have the foot divided into ten of these segments or arms are called the _Decapoda_, those which have only eight of them are called the _Octopoda_. All of these have _two_ plume-like gills--one on each side--and so are called _Dibranchiata_; and in the eight-armed section of these is the argonaut or Paper Nautilus. Of the Pearly Nautilus and the four-gilled order I shall have more to say by-and-by: at present we will follow the history of the argonaut.

Notwithstanding all that has been written of it, it is only within the last fifty years that this has been correctly understood. An eight-armed cuttle was recognised and named _Ocythoe_, which, instead of having, like the common octopus, all of its eight arms thong-like and tapering to a point, had the two dorsal limbs flattened into a broad thin membrane. Although this animal was sometimes seen dead without any covering, it was generally found contained in a thin and slightly elastic univalve shell of graceful form, and bearing some resemblance to an elegantly shaped boat. It did not penetrate to the bottom of this shell; it was not attached to it by any muscular ligament, nor was the shell moulded on its body, nor apparently made to fit it. Hence it was long regarded as doubtful, and even by naturalists so recent and eminent as Dumeril and De Blainville, whether the octopod really secreted the shell, or whether, like the hermit-crab, it borrowed for its protection the shell of some other mollusk. Aristotle left the subject with the faithful acknowledgment: "As to the origin and growth of this shell nothing is yet exactly determined. It appears to be produced like other shells; but even this is not evident, any more than it is whether the animal can live without it." Pliny, as usual, instead of throwing light on the matter, obscured it. He regarded the shell as the property of a gasteropod like the snail, and the octopod as an amateur yachtsman who occasionally went on board and took a trip in the frail craft, and assisted its owner to navigate it for the fun of the thing. This is what he says about it[76]: "Mutianus reports that he saw in the Propontis a shell formed like a little ship, having the poop turned up and the prow pointed. An animal called the _Nauplius_, resembling an octopus, was enclosed in the shell with its owner, for its amusement in the following manner. When the sea is calm the guest lowers his arms, and uses them as oars and a helm, whilst the owner of the shell expands himself to catch the wind; so that one has the pleasure of carrying and sailing, and the other of steering. Thus, these two otherwise senseless animals take their pleasure together; but the meeting them sailing in their shell is a bad omen for mariners, and foretells some great calamity."

[76] Naturalis Historia, lib. ix. cap. 30.

Although the animal was never found in any other shell, and the shell was never known to contain any other animal, and though, when the shell and the animal were found together they were always of proportionate size, this octopod, as I have said, was looked upon by some conchologists as a pirate who had taken possession of a ship which did not belong to him, until Madame Jeannette Power, a French lady then residing in Messina, having succeeded in keeping alive for a time an argonaut the shell of which had been broken in its capture, discovered that the animal quickly repaired the fracture, and reproduced the portions that had been broken off. Induced by this to make further experiments, she kept a number of living argonauts in cages sunk in the sea near the citadel of Messina, and in 1836 laid before the "Academy" at Catania the following results of her observations of them:--

1st. That the argonaut constructs the shell which it inhabits.

2nd. That it quits the egg entirely naked, and forms the shell after its birth.

3rd. That it can repair its shell, if necessary, by a fresh deposit of material having the same chemical composition as its original shell.

4th. That this material is secreted by the palmate, or sail, arms, and is laid on the outside of the shell, to the exterior of which these membranous arms are closely applied.

Madame Power was mistaken on two points. Firstly, the construction of the shell does not commence after the birth of the animal, but, as has been shown by M. Duvernoy, its rudimentary form is distinctly visible by the aid of the microscope in the embryo, whilst still in the egg; and secondly, she continued to believe in the use of the membranous arms as sails, and of the others as oars. This fallacy was exploded by Captain Sander Rang, an officer of the French navy, and "port-captain" at Algiers, who carefully followed up Madame Power's experiments, and confirmed the more important of them. Thus were set at rest questions which for centuries had divided the opinions of zoologists.

The "Paper Nautilus" is, in fact, a female octopod provided with a portable nest, in which to carry about and protect her eggs, instead of brooding over them in some cranny of a rock, or within the recesses of a pile of shells, as does her cousin the octopus. From the membranes of the two flattened and expanded arms she secretes and, if necessary, repairs her shell, and by applying them closely to its outer surface on each side, holds herself within it, for it is not fastened to her body by any attaching muscles. When disturbed or in danger she can loosen her hold, and, leaving her cradle, swim away independently of it. It has been said that, having once left it, she has not the ability nor perhaps the sagacity to re-enter her nest, and resume the guardianship of her eggs.[77] From my own observations of the breeding habits of other octopods I think this most improbable. The use and purpose of the shell of the argonaut will be better understood if I briefly describe what I have witnessed of the treatment of its eggs by its near relative, the octopus.

[77] Appendix to Sir Edward Belcher's 'Voyage of the "Samarang,"'
by Mr. Arthur Adams, assistant surgeon to the expedition.

"The eggs of the octopus," as I have elsewhere said, "when first laid, are small, oval, translucent granules, resembling little grains of rice, not quite an eighth of an inch long. They grow along and around a common stalk, to which every egg is separately attached, as grapes form part of a bunch. Each of the elongated bunches is affixed by a glutinous secretion to the surface of a rock or stone (never to seaweed, as has been erroneously stated), and hangs pendent by its stalk in a long white cluster, like a magnified catkin of the filbert, or, to use Aristotle's simile, like the fruit of the white alder. The length and number of these bunches varies according to the size and condition of the parent. Those produced by a small octopus are seldom more than about three inches long, and from twelve to twenty in number; but a full-grown female will deposit from forty to fifty of such clusters, each about five inches in length. I have counted the eggs of which these clusters are composed, and find that there are about a thousand in each: so that a large octopus produces in one laying, usually extended over three days, a progeny of from 40,000 to 50,000. I have seen an octopus, when undisturbed, pass one of her arms beneath the hanging bunches of her eggs, and, dilating the membrane on each side of it into a boat-shaped hollow, gather and receive them in it as in a trough or cradle which exhibited in its general shape and outline a remarkable similarity to the shell of the argonaut, with the eggs of which octopod its own are almost identical in form and appearance. Then she would caress and gently rub them, occasionally turning towards them the mouth of her flexible exhalent and locomotor tube, like the nozzle of a fireman's hose-pipe, so as to direct upon them a jet of the excurrent water. I believe that the object of this syringing process is to free the eggs from parasitic animalcules, and possibly to prevent the growth of conferva, which, I have found, rapidly overspreads those removed from her attention."[78]

[78] 'The Octopus,' 1873, p. 57.

It has been suggested that the syringing may be for the purpose of keeping the water surrounding the eggs well aerated; but this is evidently erroneous, for the water ejected from the tube has been previously deprived of its oxygen, and consequently of its health-giving properties, whilst passing over the gills of the parent. Week after week, for fifty days, a brooding octopus will continue to attend to her eggs with the most watchful and assiduous care, seldom leaving them for an instant except to take food, which, without a brief abandonment of her position, would be beyond her reach. Aristotle asserted that while the female is incubating she takes no food. This is incorrect; but in every case of the kind that has come under my observation the mother octopod, whenever she has been obliged to leave her nest, has returned to it as quickly as possible; and so I believe can, and does, the female argonaut to her shell, and that, too, without any difficulty. In her case the numerous clusters of eggs are all united at their origin to one slender and tapering stalk which is fixed by a spot of glutinous matter to the body-whorl of the spiral shell.