In spite of the exaggerations of some writers, the size of many of these animals is very large, as has been attested by trustworthy authorities. Mr. Beale,(39) engaged in searching for shells on the rocks of Bonin Island, was seized by one which measured across its expanded arms four feet, the body not being larger than a clenched hand. He describes its cold, slimy grasp as sickening. His tormentor was killed by a cut from a large knife, but its arms had to be released bit by bit. In the museum of Montpellier there is one six feet long. Péron, a French naturalist, saw in the Australian seas one eight feet long. The travellers Quoy and Gaimard picked up in the Atlantic Ocean the skeleton of an enormous mollusc, which, according to their calculations, must have weighed 200 lbs. In the College of Surgeons a beak or mandible of a cuttle‐fish is preserved, which is larger than a human hand. In 1853 a gigantic specimen was stranded on the coast of Jutland, which furnished many barrow‐loads of flesh and other organic matter. [Illustration: THE OCTOPUS (_Octopus vulgaris_.)] Who has not heard of the kraken, the terror of the northern seas? Naturalists and others long ago gave credence to the assertions of certain Scandinavian writers who believed themselves in the existence of a great sea‐monster capable of arresting and annihilating vessels. This kraken was made to embrace a three‐masted vessel in its arms. “If,” says laughing De Montfort, “my kraken takes with them, I shall make it extend its arms to both shores of the Straits of Gibraltar.” A Bishop of Bergen assured the world that a whole regiment could easily manœuvre on the back of the kraken. All this, however, probably arose from the observation of some extraordinarily large specimen. An apparently well‐authenticated fact is the following, vouched for by a French naval officer, and the then French Consul at the Canaries. The steam corvette _Alecton_ fell in, between Teneriffe and Madeira, with a sea‐monster of the cuttle kind, said to be fifty feet long, without counting its eight arms; it had two fleshy fins; they estimated its weight at close on two tons. The commander allowed shots to be fired at it, one of which evidently hit the animal in a vital part, for the waves were stained with blood. A strong musky odour was noticed. This is characteristic of many of the cephalopods.