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II. Description of several Marine Animals found on the South 

 Coast of Devonshire. By George Montagu, Esq. F.L.S. 



Read June 18, 1805. 



Since I last had the honour of addressing a paper to the Lin- 

 nean Society on the subject of marine animals, much new mat- 

 ter has occurred in that department, and I trust the description 

 of some of these, in addition to correct drawings, will enable 

 those who may hereafter more immediately direct their attention 

 to that study, to identify without doubt the objects in question. 



Nothing can be in a greater state of confusion than many 

 genera of the Mollusca order ; and even those of the Crustacea 

 are far from being clearly defined, although their structure 

 greatly conduces to that end, by their unalterable form and du- 

 rability. For these the cabinets of the curious may be occa- 

 sionally consulted; but no museum can convey to the mind 

 those distinguishing characters that form the divisions and spe- 

 cific distinctions of the former; their soft and delicate bodies 

 can only be preserved in antiseptic fluids. In spirits, it is true, 

 the mass is preserved, but the form is usually rendered shape- 

 less, the colours vanish, and the membranaceous appendages, 

 which constitute the principal divisional distinctions, are either 

 entirely lost, or so contracted and distorted, that the greater 

 part of the subjects of Helminthology, the more simple except- 

 ed, become a chaos of undistinguishable matter. The Mollusca 

 must be described and figured from living specimens; and those of 



vol. ix. m the 



