NUDIBRANCHIATA, 



WITH SOME REMARKS ON THE FAMILIES AND GENERA AND 

 DESCRIPTION OF A NEW GENUS, DORIDOMORPHA\ 



By Sir Charles Eliot, M.A., K.C.M.G., 



Commissioner of the British East Africa Protectorate. 



(With Plate XXXII.) 



The Nudibranchs described in the present paper represent the collections made by 

 Mr J. Stanley Gardiner in the Maldive and Laccadive Islands (1899 — 1900). I have added 

 descriptions of two other remarkable specimens with which he has furnished me, one 

 {Dondomor-pha Gardineri) obtained by himself at Rotuma in 1896, and the other (Pleuro- 

 leura striata) by the Skeat Expedition from Pulan Bidang in the Malay Peninsula (1899). 

 The specimens from Minikoi (Laccadive Islands) were all reef forms : those from the other 

 localities were largely dredged. In only a few cases are there any notes as to the colour 

 or appearance of the living animals : as preserved they have, with a few conspicuous 

 exceptions, lost entirely their original colour and assumed the dirty yellowish tinge common 

 in alcoholic specimens. They have also in many cases been strongly contracted and dis- 

 torted by the action of the preserving medium. I have therefore felt very diffident in 

 creating new species, and have perhaps erred on the side of identifying specimens with the 

 most similar forms already described. But I think it useless to create new species of 

 Nudibranchs unless it is possible to formulate the specific characters. The fact that an 

 alcoholic specimen does not seem quite the same as those already described is not sufficient 

 to give it specific rank. 



Besides forms common in the Indo-Pacific region, the present collections contain a 

 number which confirm the descriptions by previous authors of species established on the 

 strength of one or a few specimens, and also offer some novelties. Of these the most 

 interesting is Doridomorpha, a small Dorid without gills, related to Doridoxa Bgh. There 

 are also a large and well-preserved Notodoris, which appears specifically distinct from 

 N. citrina, for which Bergh established the genus : a new species of Dictyodoris : a form 



' [This paper was received in June, 1902, though only of some of the species noticed here, which may bear an earlier 

 published now. The author has since published descriptions date than the present volume but are really later. Ed.] 



