Note 17 — Chapter VI · NEW LIMBS FOR OLD ONES.

Professor Steenstrup says 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; also a male in which the same was the case on seven of the arms,—the hectocotylized limb alone being uninjured. 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 Sepiidæ and Squids)—appear to be incapable of thus repairing and replacing accidental injuries.—[See the translation of his paper by Mr. W. S. Dallas, in the “Ann. and Mag. of Nat. Histy.” of August, 1857; No. 116, 2nd series; p. 107.]