An octopus from our own coasts having arms two feet in length may be considered a rather large specimen; and Dr. J. E. Gray, who was always most kindly ready to place at the disposal of any sincere inquirer the vast store of knowledge laid up in his wonderful memory, told me that “there is not one in the British museum which exceeds this size, or which would not go into a quart pot, body, arms and all.” The largest British specimen I have hitherto seen had arms 2 ft. 6 in. long. If, however, the octopus seldom or never arrives at a length of arm of three feet on the northern coasts of France, we have sufficient evidence that it exceeds it on her southern borders, and along the Spanish and Italian shores of the Mediterranean. M. Verany, of Nice, an able naturalist, mentions having seen an octopus which weighed 33 lbs. and measured three metres from tip to tip of its outstretched arms. This would make the length of each arm about four-and-a-half feet. A fisherman who noticed it affixed to the mole of the port of Nice had the hardihood to grasp it with his hands, and made himself master of it, though not without much difficulty. Mr. Sylvanus Hanley, the well-known conchologist, and joint author with Professor Edward Forbes of their standard work on the British Mollusca, who passes every winter in Italy, has personally informed me that there are living in the harbour of Leghorn several octopods having arms at least four feet long, and as thick at their base as a man’s wrist. They lie with their bodies squeezed into, and hidden in, crevices in the stone-work of the mole and sea-wall, two or three of their arms extended and waving about in the water in readiness to seize passing prey, and the others holding fast to the blocks of stone. Mr. Hanley says that his son, who is a practised shore-hunter, and no coward, having frequent occasion, whilst in search of shells, to climb along a ledge of the rough masonry near the surface of the water, just beneath which was the lurking-place of one of these great creatures, was for some time afraid to pass the spot, in consequence of the animal’s formidable appearance; for, as he approached, it would thrust one or two of its disc-studded arms out of water, and stretch them towards him in a threatening manner, in its endeavours to reach him. The Italian divers and bathers are said to fear these creatures.