278 Shell Life 



irritated rapidly creates a cloud under whose shelter 

 it can escape. It has a nauseous scent, which makes 

 it objectionable to many creatures; and when it is 

 contracted it closely resembles the Beadlet Anemone, 

 which is common in the places it haunts and is also 

 objected to as food by most fishes. Not only does 

 the Sea Hare profit by this resemblance to the 

 anemone, but I have found that the mollusk varies its 

 seaweed diet by at least occasionally lunching off a 

 Beadlet. The eggs are deposited in spring among 

 the weeds. For years much confusion existed respect- 

 ing the identity of this creature ; it was generally 

 referred to A. depilans, a Mediterranean species, 

 which, however, has been taken occasionally on our 

 south coast. Major A. R. Hunt recorded many 

 examples taken in Torbay in the years 1875 and 

 1877, some of which weighed from 1 to 2^ lbs., and 

 had shells as much as 2 J inches in length. 



The Side-gilled Sea-slug {Pleurohranchus ijlibimda) 

 belongs to the section Pleiirohranchidm, and differs 

 from the Sea Hare in several respects. Its broader 

 foot has no side lobes, there is but one pair of broad 

 tentacles with the eyes at their base, and a large gill- 

 plume projects from between the right under-side of 

 the shell and the pointed foot. There is a large 

 internal, oblong, thin and flexible, almost flat shell, 

 but whose nucleus shows that it once had a tendency 

 to spiral growth. The animal is about 1 inch in 

 length, of a pale yellow colour, and its habitat is 

 under stones and in empty bivalves. There is 

 another species, the Rough Side-gilled Sea-slug (P. 

 inemihranaceus), whose broad foot has a rounded 

 extremity and waved margins, whilst the back is 



