iEGIRUS PUNCTILUCENS.
behind them. Smaller ones occupy each side of the ridge to the tail. Dorsal tentacles
stout, linear, smooth, slightly compressed at the sides, and terminating in a blunt double apex,
the posterior half rising a little above the other: they are yellowish, sprinkled with white,
and having two or three transverse brown bands. Sheaths moderately sized, divided into
five mammilliform lobes, the external ones very large, the internal smaller. Branchial
plumes three, imperfectly tripinnate, of an obscure pellucid white, with a pale brown line
running along the principal stem and branches; the whole minutely streaked with opake
white. The two lateral plumes have each a large posterior branch. Head indistinct, covered
by a small veil, the margins of which are scalloped into about eight or ten equal tubercles:
mouth tubular, situated in a depression between the veil and foot; the lips fleshy, and outside
of them two indistinct oral tentacles. Foot whitish, with the sides nearly parallel, squared in
front, -and slightly produced laterally into obtuse points.
The spicula of the skin are very numerous, and crowded together without much apparent
order; they are of different sizes, smooth, swelling a little and slightly bent in the centre, and
tapering to a point at each end.
The Doris Maura of Professo.r E. Forbes, which we consider to be a variety of this
species, has the colour of the body darker, and the tubercles pinkish. We found a variety
somewhat similar in Lamlash Bay, Isle of Arran.
This interesting and curious animal has at first sight rather an unattractive appearance,
and it is not until we examine it more carefully that its beauty becomes apparent. The
brilliant spots with which it is covered, give it the appearance of being studded with small
gems, each set in a dark frame. They vary from azure blue to emerald green, reflecting
either colour occasionally according to the light they are viewed in.
JEgirus punctilucens has now been met with in several localities on our southern and
western coasts, and, though by no means common, appears to be pretty extensively diffused.
M. D’Orbigny first described it from a specimen found near Brest, and it has also been found
on the Swedish coast, where it appears to be more common than with us, as Professor
Loven remarks that it is sometimes gregarious. It is a sluggish animal, though the individuals
we have met with are certainly much less so than the one observed by M. D’Orbigny,
which took five hours to traverse a vase little more than a decimeter in diameter. According
to the observations of that naturalist, it feeds upon small species of Ulvse.
The spawn of E . punctilucens consists of a narrow gelatinous riband, cemented by its
edge to stones, and forming a spiral coil of two volutions. The ova are small, and placed in
close transverse lines of about ten each.
Figs. 1, 2, 3. JEgirus punctilucens, different views.
4. A tentacle more highly magnified, and exhibiting three of the brilliant spots
at its base.
5. A branchial plume.
6. A portion' of the skin with spicula.
7. Detached spicula, more highly magnified.
t , 8. Spawn.
9. A portion of the Same showing the ova.