WORKS.
63
In her soft chamber pillow'd to repose,
While through the wintry nights the tempest blows.
Now gnaws the boneless polypus his feet;[1]
Starved midst bleak rocks, his desolate retreat:
While through the wintry nights the tempest blows.
Now gnaws the boneless polypus his feet;[1]
Starved midst bleak rocks, his desolate retreat:
- ↑ Now gnaws the boneless polypus his feet.] Athenæus, book vii. explodes the notion of the polypus gnawing its own feet, and states that its feet are so injured by the congers or sea-eels. Pliny accounts for the mutilation in rather a marvellous manner. “They are ravenously fond of oysters: these, at the touch, close their shell, and cutting off the claws of the polypus take their food from their plunderer. The polypi, therefore, lie in wait for them when they are open; and placing a little stone, so as not to touch the body of the oyster, and so as not to be ejected by the muscular motion of the shell, assail them in security and extract the flesh. The oyster contracts itself, but to no purpose, having been thus wedged open.” Lib. ix. c. 30.
The same story has been told, with greater probability, of the monkey. “The name of polypi has been peculiarly ascribed to these animals by the ancients, because of the number of feelers or feet of which they are all possessed, and with which they have a slow progressive motion: but the moderns have given the name of polypus to a reptile that lives in fresh water, by no means so large or observable. These are found at the bottom of wet ditches, or attached to the under-surface of the broad-leaved plants that grow and swim on the waters. The same difference holds between these and the sea-water polypi, as between all the productions of the land and the ocean. The marine ve-
At his side they spread
Mantle and vest; and next the limpid oil
Presenting to him in a golden cruse,
Exhorted him to bathe.Cowper.
Mantle and vest; and next the limpid oil
Presenting to him in a golden cruse,
Exhorted him to bathe.Cowper.
