found on the South Coast of Devonshire. 83 



ordinary conformation and splendid colouring of many of the 

 Mollusca animals that inhabit the deep ; and these, though not 

 their primary object, must arrest their attention, and be highly 

 gratifying to an elevated mind. 



To the few, therefore, who "have the opportunity, by chance 

 or choice, of examining these creatures in their native element, 

 it is well known how little can be conveyed by even the most 

 minute description, without well executed figures coloured from 

 life ; the want of which, added to the very concise descriptive 

 information usually given, has thrown but very obscure lio-ht on 

 the subject, even in the zoological works of the most celebrated 

 naturalists : the divisions are undefined by evident and distinct 

 characteristic marks; and, what is worse, obscurity becomes 

 more clouded by the diversity of opinion as to arrangement, 

 which frustrates the very intention of system, and serves only to 

 reduce method again to chaos. 



These considerations I must plead in excuse for the want of 

 synonyms in some instances, perhaps, being prefixed to the sub- 

 jects hereafter described. 



As in my former paper, I have accompanied this with outlines 

 only of the Crustacea, one or two figures excepted, where colour* 

 ing was considered as essential. 



The subjects given will be found to be mostly new; amongst 

 the Ca?icri 9 however, two or three which are common, and which 

 have unaccountably been confounded since the writings of Lin- 

 naeus, are figured to elucidate their respective specific distinc- 

 tions, and rescue from a state of confusion animals of very dif- 

 ferent habits. 



If in those of the Mollusca I should have arranged any one 

 that may not accord with the opinion of the helminthologist, I 

 have to plead the indivisible connection of the links in the 



m 2 amorphose 



