80 LEPAS HILLII. 



either pale or purplish-brown, or only clouded on the 

 sides with the same. In young specimens, peduncle 

 nearly colourless ; and in those under a quarter of an inch 

 long in the capitulum, the top of the peduncle has not 

 acquired its orange tint. Sack pale, leaden-purple, body 

 the same, but paler and more reddish; cirri (but only 

 the tips of first pair) tinted with fine golden orange. 

 Immature ova in peduncle beautiful blue. After being 

 long kept in spirits, the colours are changed, weak- 

 ened, or discharged, as in L. a?iatifera and L. anserifera, 

 and the valves become opaque. In some long-kept spe- 

 cimens the corium everywhere had become pale brown ; 

 more usually it assumes a dirty purplish lead-colour. 



Monstrous Variety, — Amongst a set of ordinary speci- 

 mens from a ship from Genoa, sent me by Mr. Stutchbury, 

 there were three, one full-grown and two very young, 

 with the whole capitulum, (and likewise with the scuta 

 and terga taken separately,) not above half the usual 

 length in proportion to the breadth. Neither the colours 

 nor animal in this variety presented any difference. 



General Remarks. — This species is almost universally 

 confounded with L. anatifera. Quoy and Gaimard, how- 

 ever, appear to have distinguished it, under the name of 

 A. tricolor, from its colours. Leach named it acci- 

 dentally, for he specifies not one distinctive character, 

 and besides his two published names, he has appended 

 two other names to specimens in the British Museum. 

 A specimen, from the Sandwich Islands, sent by Mr. 

 Conrad to Mr. Cuming, is marked A. substriata. In a 

 dry state, from the shrinking of the membranes, and 

 consequent approach of the carina to the other valves, 

 and of the fork to the basal margin of the scuta, it is 

 most difficult to distinguish this species, though so 

 decidedly distinct, from L. anatifera; the absence, how- 

 ever, of a tooth on the under side of the right-hand 

 scutum is at once characteristic. Even in specimens 

 kept in spirits, in which there has been no shrinking, 

 but in which the colours have changed, and taking into 



