fate of _Clubin_, or to escape only after a terrible combat, like _Gilliatt_, in M. Victor Hugo’s novel. But the old fellow’s bark was worse than his bite, for on a bare arm being presented to him in the shallow water, he made no attempt to hold or bite it, but merely scrambled and crawled harmlessly over it. By the removal of a portion of these eggs I hoped, also, that an interesting question concerning their development might be finally answered. Aristotle had been understood to affirm that the parent octopus “incubates” her eggs. I had always expressed very decidedly my opinion, derived from previous experiments on the eggs of the cuttle-fish and squid (_Sepia_ and _Loligo_) that, the ova once impregnated, no incubation by the parent is required or takes place in a sense equivalent to that of a fowl developing a chick by the warmth of its body; but that her unremitting attention to them is solely for the purpose of protecting them from injury, keeping them free from animal and vegetable parasites, and preventing their being devoured by fishes, or members of her own tribe—possibly by their own father. If I had felt myself free to act according to my inclination, I should, at once, have removed a larger number of the eggs; but in matters concerning which nothing is positively known, and everything has to be learned, caution is requisite. There was good reason for hesitation, when care in the conduct of the observation might remove the doubts of centuries. The first thing to be ascertained was—Had the ova been properly fecundated—did they contain, each, a living embryo? The microscope answered “Yes.” Under a low power a young octopus was seen moving freely in the fluid contained in each transparent granule, the bright orange-brown colour in the pigment cells of its skin flashing, dying out, and re-appearing in another place, like sparks in tinder. And I was astonished to see that the little creature within the unbroken membrane was already endowed with the power of assimilating its colour to that of its surroundings. When light was reflected upon its surface, and through its translucent body, from a piece of white paper laid on the mirror of the instrument, it became pallid and colourless: on a bronze penny being substituted for the paper, it assumed a darker hue; and (which was still more remarkable) on its being disturbed by a slight compression or agitation of the egg, its surface became suffused with the red flush of anger and irritation which characterises the adult under provocation.