the eight opening lines of a sonnet, in which the rhyme-arrangement is abbaabba, or some modification of this, but properly always on two rhymes only.
OCTAVIA, the name of two princesses of the Augustan house.
(1) Octavia, daughter of Gaius Octavius and sister of the emperor
Augustus, was the wife of Gaius Marcellus, one of the bitterest
enemies of Julius Caesar. In 41 b.c. her husband died, and she
was married to Marcus Antonius, with the idea of bringing about a
reconciliation between him and her brother. Her efforts were
at first successful, but in 36 Antony left for the Parthian War
and renewed his intrigue with Cleopatra. Though Octavia
took out troops and money to him (35), he refused to see her and
formally divorced her in 32, but she always protected his children,
even those by Fulvia and Cleopatra. Her beauty and virtues
are praised by all ancient authorities. By her first husband she
was the mother of Marcus Marcellus (q.v.), who died in 23 b.c.
(2) Octavia, daughter of the emperor Claudius, was the wife of
Nero, by whom she was put to death. A Latin tragedy on her
fate is attributed, though wrongly, to Seneca.
OCTAVO, a shortened form of Lat. in octavo, “ in an eighth,”
i.e. of a sheet of paper, a term applied to a size of paper and to a
size of a printed volume. Paper is in octavo when a whole single
sheet is folded three times to form eight leaves; a book is technically
termed of “octavo” size when made up of sheets folded
three times (see Bibliography and Paper).
OCTOBER, the eighth month of the old Roman year, which
began in March. In the Julian calendar, while retaining its
old name, it became the tenth month, and had thirty-one days
assigned to it. The meditrinalia, when a libation of new wine
was made in honour of Meditrina, were celebrated on the 11th,
the faunalia on the 13th, and the equiria, when the equus October
was sacrificed to Mars in the Campus Martius, on the 15th.
Several attempts were made to rename the month in honour
of the emperors. Thus it was in succession temporarily known
as Germanicus, Antoninus, Tacitus and Herculeus, the latter
a surname of Commodus. The senate's attempt to christen it
Faustinus in honour of Faustina, wife of Antoninus, was equally
unsuccessful. The principal ecclesiastical feasts in October are
those of St Luke on the 18th and of St Simon and St Jude on
the 28th. By the Slavs it is called “ yellow month,” from the
fading of the leaf; to the Anglo-Saxons it was known as Winterfylleth,
because at this full moon (fylleth) winter was supposed
to begin.
OCTODON, the generic name for a small South American
rodent mammal (Octodon degus) locally known as the degu.
It is the type of the family Octodontidae, the members of which—collectively termed octodonts—are exclusively Central and
South American. Several of them, such as Echinomys and
Loncheres, are rat-like creatures with spiny or bristly fur (see
Rodentia).
OCTOPUS (Gr. ὀκτώ, eight and πούς, foot), the name in
scientific zoology belonging to a single genus of eight armed
Cephalopoda (q.v.), one of whose distinguishing characters is that
it has two rows of suckers on each arm. This true octopus occurs
occasionally on the British coasts, at least the south coast, but
is usually rare. It is more common on the southern coasts
of Europe, including those of the Mediterranean. The usual
species of Octopoda on the British south coast is Eledone cirrosa,
which has only one row of suckers on each arm, and is a smaller
animal. The celebrated account of the octopus given by Victor
Hugo in his Travailleurs de la mer is not so fictitious as some
critics with a knowledge of natural history have maintained.
It is true that the great French author has made the mistake
of using the name Cephaloptera, which belongs to a large tropical
fish similar to a skate, instead of Cephalopoda, and that he applies
the term devil-fish, which belongs to Cephaloptera, to the
octopus. His description is exaggerated, imaginative and
sensational; but it is correct in its most important particulars,
and bears evidence that the author was to some extent personally
acquainted with the animal and its habits, although he was not
a scientific observer. The octopus feeds on crabs, and crabs feed
on carrion, and, therefore, there is nothing impossible in Hugo's
account of the skeleton of a drowned man surrounded by the
shells of numbers of crabs which the octopus had devoured.
Whether an octopus would attack and kill a man is another
question, but it certainly might seize him with its arms and
suckers while holding to the rocks by other arms, and a man
seized in this way when in the water might be in danger of being
drowned.
The octopus and many of the Octopoda move about by means of their arms on the sea bottom, and are not free-swimming, though like other Cephalopods they can propel themselves on occasion backwards through the water by means of the funnel. Other Octopoda, however, are pelagic and free-swimming, and such habits are not confined to those forms which are provided with lateral fins. The Argonaut (see Nautilus) is one of the Octopoda. The separation of one of the arms of the male for purposes of reproduction is one of the most remarkable peculiarities of the Octopoda. It does not occur, however, in octopus nor in many other members of the group. One arm is always considerably modified in structure and employed in copulation, but it is only in three genera, one of which is Argonauta, that the arm spontaneously separates. The detached arm is found still alive and moving in the mantle cavity of the female, and when first discovered in these circumstances was naturally regarded by the older naturalists as a parasite. Cuvier, on account of the numerous suckers of the detached arm, gave it the name Hectocotylus (hundred suckers). When the arm is not detached but only altered in structure it is said to be hectocotylized. In Octopus and Eledone it is the third right arm which is hectocotylized. The extremity of this arm is expanded and assumes the shape of a spoon. Whether detached or not the modified arm possesses a cavity into which the spermatophores are passed and the arm serves to convey them to the mantle cavity of the female.
It has been mentioned above that the true octopus (Octopus vulgaris) is usually rare on the English coast. In 1899 and 1900, however, they became so abundant on the south coast as to attract general notice, and to constitute a veritable plague which threatened complete ruin to the shell-fish fisheries. This visitation and its effects were described by W. Garstang in the Journal of the Marine Biological Association. The abnormal abundance occurred all along the west coast of France, whence it extended to the Channel, and was probably due to a succession of unusually warm summers and mild winters, beginning with the warm spring and hot summer of 1893. The octopus in the years mentioned entered the lobster pots of the fishermen and devoured or killed the crabs and lobsters captured. The pots when hauled contained usually only living octopus and the mutilated remains of their victims. One fisherman took in a single week 64 specimens of octopus and only 15 living uninjured lobsters. The octopus also almost exterminated the swimming crabs (Portunus) in Plymouth Sound, and in the tanks of the Plymouth aquarium attacked and devoured all the specimens of its smaller relative Eledone cirrosa.
With regard to the size which the octopus may attain, the dimensions of the body are not usually given in records, but it is stated that the arms in the largest specimens measured 3½ ft., and in numerous cases were 3 ft. in length. This would enable the eight arms to extend over a circle 6 ft. in diameter, but the globular body is not more than about a third of the length of an arm in diameter. When not in pursuit of prey the octopus hides itself in a hole between rocks and covers itself with stones and shells. Like its victims it seems to be active chiefly at night and to remain in its nest during the day.
For a technical account of the Octopoda see Cephalopoda; also W. Garstang,“The Plague of Octopus on the South Coast, and its Effect on the Crab and Lobster Fisheries,” Journ. Mar. Biol. Assoc. vol. vi. (1900) p. 260.
(J. T. C.)
OCTOROON, or Octaroon (from Lat. octo, eight, formed on
the example of quadroon), the offspring of a quadroon and a
white; a person having one-eighth negro blood. In rare instances
such persons are called tercerons, as being third in descent from
a negro ancestor. Occasionally persons are called octoroons
