io6 THE SCOTTISH NATURALIST 



at Morningside, Edinburgh, and to this circumstance the 

 majority of the following records are due. 



Hermcea dendritica, A. and H. This dainty little species 

 interested us more than any other Nudibranch met with. 

 Not only is it an addition to the local list, but some 

 apparently fresh facts regarding its life-history have been 

 ascertained. The first specimens we noticed were three in a 

 glass dish containing various small seaweeds brought from 

 rock-pools on the coast east of Port Seton, Haddingtonshire, 

 27th May 191 5. One of them was transferred to a test-tube 

 in which it deposited, during the few days it survived, a coil 

 of spawn on a piece of Ulva lactuca placed beside it. In 

 about ten days the larvae or " veligers " began to hatch out. 

 When fully extended this specimen was only 6 mm. in 

 length, and the others were much the same size, perhaps if 

 anything less. On 21st August of. the same year a much 

 larger example length 11 mm. was found on a plant of 

 the beautiful feathery seaweed, Bryopsis plunwsa, from a 

 rock-pool at the east end of Gullane Bay. It also deposited 

 some coils of spawn, and observation showed that it was 

 feeding on the Bryopsis. On this food it lived till 4th 

 October, when, the supply having meantime failed, it died, 

 apparently either from starvation or old age. Though 

 various other algas green {Cladophorce, Ulva, etc.), red and 

 brown were placed in its dish it would touch nothing but 

 Bryopsis, of which even a piece taken from a herbarium 

 specimen and moistened was not neglected. Doubtless the 

 three examples got on 27th May are to be accounted for by 

 the fact that Bryopsis was among the seaweeds then brought 

 home. In 1916, a tuft of the Bryopsis, brought from Joppa 

 rocks, near Edinburgh, on 25th July, was found to be 

 inhabited by a number of very young Hermaeids, which, 

 as was expected, proved to be H. dendritica. They were then 

 scarcely 2 mm. in length, with few dorsal papillae or cerata 

 (five pairs in a specific case), and short broad, somewhat 

 crenate ear-like tentacles (rhinophores) ; but they rapidly 

 grew into the adult form, and by 1st September, though no 

 more than 6 to 7 mm. long, had been spawning for a week. 

 Concurrently with the decay of the food plant all had died 



