The fishermen of the Mediterranean have a summary method of killing the octopus or cuttle. They turn back the arms over the head, and seizing the latter with their teeth compress it in the region of the brain. Death is instantaneous. M. Moquin Tandon, in his “World of the Sea,” alluding to the peril to swimmers of contact with the octopus, gives a singular recipe for rendering the creature harmless. He says: “Dr. Franklin found that a few drops of vinegar on its back at once persuaded it to release its hold.” So, too, would a red-hot poker, no doubt; and it would be almost as easy to apply the one as the other under water: for, supposing that swimmers were in the habit of carrying cruet bottles slung round their necks, considerable ingenuity would be required to enable one to pour a few drops of vinegar on the back of an octopus which was holding him by the ancle at some distance below the surface. To put vinegar on an octopus, as to put salt on a bird’s tail, you must first catch it. I have somewhere read of a Dutch pedlar who sold a man a liquid for the extermination of fleas. “And how do you use it?” inquired his customer. “Ketch te flea, and drop von little drop into his mout,” answered the pedlar. “Why!” exclaimed the purchaser, “I could kill it in half the time, by crushing it.” “Vell,” said the Dutchman, thoughtfully, “dat is a goot vay, too.” In August, 1873, I received from Dr. R. Brisco Owen, of Haulfre, Beaumaris, a fellow of the Linnean Society since 1824, the following communication respecting octopods quitting the water, and their capability of rapid progress on land:—