History of British animals - University of Guam Marine Laboratory

foot rounded, with an irregularly indented margin.t 2Pleurobranchus. MOLLUSCA. BRANCHIFERA. 291on the right side, under a lid, capable of expanding into a complicated plumoseridge ;within the longitudinal lips are two corneous plates or jaws.This animal pours out a purple fluid from under the branchial lid when taken.166. A. punctata.— Body brown, with numerous white spots.Cuv. Moll. t. i. f. 3-5. Flem. Edin. En. xiv. p. 623.—Coast of Devonand Orkney.This species resembles the last in structure, and differs in nothing but colour.Cuvier indeed states, as a distinguishing character, the naked centralspot on the lid; but this is accidental. Montagu informed me, by letter 17thFebruary 1811, that this animal was common along with the other kind (ofwhich he considered it, probably justly, as a variety), and so " large as to filla moderate sized tea-cup." It has only ones occurred to myself in the Bayof Kirkwall, though the A. depilans is common on the Scottish coast.167. A. viridis.— Body of a green colour.Mont. Linn. Trans, vii. t. vii. f. 1.— Coast of Devon." With the fore-part of the body like a common Limax ; tentacula or feelerstwo, flat, but usually rolled up, and appear like cylindric tubes ; at a littledistance behind the tentacula, on each side, is a whitish mark, in which isplaced a small black eye the body ;is depressed, and spreads on each side intoa membranaceous fin, but which gradually decreases from thence to the tail,or posterior end ; this membranous part is considerably amorphous, but isusually turned upwards on the back, and sometimes meeting, though mosttimes the margins are reflected ; this, as well as the back, is of a beautifulgrass-green colour, marked on the superior part of the fins or membrane witha few small azure spots, disposed in rows ; the under part with more numerous,but irregular, spots of the same ;the fore-part of the head is bifid ; thelips marked by a black margin the sustentaculum ;is scarcely definable, as itmost commonly holds by a small space close to the anterior end, and turnsthe posterior end more or less to one side ; it sometimes, however, extendsitself for the purpose of locomotion, in which it scarce equals a snail." " Althoughthis animal does not strictly correspond with the characters prefixedby Linnaeus to the genus Laplysia, yet it approximates so nearly to the depilans,in its external form, that we cannot hesitate to place it with that animal,though we could not discern any membranaceous plate or shield underthe skin on the back." Mont.— The characters here assigned to this speciesare such as to excite the belief that it is not an Aplysia ; but they are notsufficiently minute to enable us to establish another genus for its reception.It is probably related to the Planariie.Gen. XLV. PLLUROBRANCHUS — Tentacula two; cloakand foot expanded, the former strengthened by a thin expandedsubspiral shell.168. P. plumula.— Cloak broad, reticulated ; foot pointed.Bulla plumula, Mont. Test. Brit. 214. vig. 2. f. 5 ; the shell I. xv. f. !).— Coast of Devon.Length about an inch ;pale yellow tentacula ; broad, with eyes at the baseabove ; feet — large, with waved edges; branchia, a plumose appendage on theright side. The shell is oval, depressed, pellucid, thin, concentricallywrinkled, with a minute single whorl near one end.169. P. membranaceus.— Cloak covered with conical papilla?;