Ocelot: Usually called the leopard cat, is common in the more southern parts of the United States, in Mexico and Brazil. It is about four feet in length, including tail, and of a gray or tawny color, and spotted. It is very destructive to weaker animals, but does not devour them, contenting itself with sucking their blood.
Octopus: The Devil Fish, a marine cephalopod, differing from squid and cuttle-fish in having eight instead of ten arms, extending from the hideous, one-eyed head.
Optical Illusions: These are frequently occasioned by a disordered condition of the nervous system. They are indicative of brain disturbance. Also optical illusions occur in delirium, caused by alcoholic excesses, fever, or injury. They are the outward sign of inward mischief, which needs very serious attention. Morbid affections of this kind have received much attention by specialists in our day, and much more enlightened methods of treatment are employed now than formerly.
Ostracism: A right exercised by the Athenians of banishing for a time any citizen whose services, rank or wealth appeared to be dangerous to the general good.
Otis, James: (1724-1783) An American Revolutionary patriot, famous for his oratory, and especially celebrated for his speech at Boston, in 1761, in opposition to the so-called “Writs of Assistance.” He was waylaid by Tories and a blow on his head destroyed his reason. He was killed by a stroke of lightning.
•Taken from the 1912 Standard Illustrated Book of Facts.