THE CRIMSON PUFFLET. 261 



dwells, clinging to the sides or bottom of the hole by the 

 suckers on its skin, the column and disk now protruding, 

 where formerly the siphons of the Mollusk projected. It 

 has forcibly reminded me of Ossian's beautiful image of the 

 fox looking out of the window in the desolate dwelling of 

 Moina. 



In captivity the animal is able to roam about the glass 

 by means of its adhesive suckers. 



Under high magnification the epidermis is seen to be a 

 film of condensed mucus, evidently composed of disin- 

 tegrated cells, in which are entangled a few cnidce, some 

 threads and many spores of Confervas, and multitudes of 

 Diatomacece, of many species. I carefully removed piece- 

 meal the whole epidermis from one, exposing the skin of 

 the entire scapus, which then was seen to be fleshy, pel- 

 lucid, pink, and in all respects like that of the terminal 

 regions, except that it was slightly more dense. In a few 

 days the scapus was again encased in an epidermic tube, 

 thin and semi-transparent, but, instead of being yellowish 

 or brown, it was quite grass-green. This I found to be 

 owing to the entanglement of conferva-spores in the mucus, 

 the water having been exposed for some days in a shallow 

 saucer. 



After having been kept some days in stale water, the 

 animal is found much contracted and retired to the middle 

 part of the epidermic case. This may be then readily 

 removed, the adhesion having ceased. The organic con- 

 nexion between the epidermis and the scapus thus appears 

 to be less in this species than in others of the genus, and 

 approximates it to Phellia in the Sagartiadce. 



This pretty Pufflet is easily kept in the aquarium, but it 

 appears to require a considerable volume of water in a state 

 of purity. It sometimes floats at the surface, extended at 

 full length. It will feed readily on minute atoms of raw 



