Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore
More than 2200 years ago—nearly four centuries before the Evangelists wrote their imperishable histories of the events on which the faith of Christendom is based—Aristotle, the celebrated naturalist of Stageira, in Macedonia, recorded observations of the habits and reproductio...
More than 2200 years ago—nearly four centuries before the Evangelists wrote their imperishable histories of the events on which the faith of Christendom is based—Aristotle, the...
2. CHAPTER I.It is not my intention to formally portray the anatomy of the Octopus,—the nature and uses of its various organs will be sufficiently indicated in the course of my remarks,—but...
3. CHAPTER II.The first Octopus whose habits and mode of life I had opportunities of observing in captivity, was one exhibited in the Aquarium at Boulogne in September 1867. It was the promin...
4. CHAPTER III.The scene of “Les Travailleurs de la Mer” is Guernsey, and the two characters brought most prominently forward are Gilliatt and Clubin. Gilliatt was a man not much liked. He avo...
5. CHAPTER IV.Bearing in mind that the famous story of “The Toilers of the Sea” should be regarded as a romance and not as a scientific treatise, I will now endeavour to compare the “devil-fi...
6. CHAPTER V.Until by the establishment of aquaria opportunities were furnished of observing the habits of the octopus in captivity, very little was known as to the truth or otherwise of the...
7. CHAPTER VI.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, an...
8. CHAPTER VII.The first instance of the octopus spawning in an aquarium in this country occurred at Brighton on the 19th of June, 1873. A large female octopus, caught at Dieppe, was brought i...
9. CHAPTER VIII.The common cuttle-fish (_Sepia officinalis_), (often called by sailors the “scuttle”), though flabby and clammy in death, is a lovely object when alive. Unlike, the skulking, hi...
10. CHAPTER IX.It must not be supposed that in mentioning a few facts relative to their economic value to mankind I consent to the narrow and conceited doctrine that, either by laws fixed from...
11. CHAPTER X.The history of the ancient belief in the existence of gigantic cephalopods is somewhat obscure. All that we know of it is from passages in the works of a few old Greek and Latin...