BULLAS. 145 
when Apuleius was accused of magic, because 
forsooth he had induced a rich widow to marry 
him, the principal proof against him was that he 
had hired the fishermen to procure him this fearful 
animal. He averred, however, that his only object 
in procuring the Sea-hare was the gratification of 
a laudable curiosity. 
Our native species (A. hybrida) is about three 
inches in length, of an olive or dark green hue, 
often marked with dark rings enclosing white areas; 
the mantle is sometimes clouded with purple or 
blue. 
Famity BULLADA. 
The shell, which in the preceding families is 
thin, small, and rudimentary, is in this family much 
more developed. The spiral character is distinct, 
and the general form and texture show a consi- 
derable approach to that condition in which it is 
more familiar to us, viz. that of an ample, tur- 
binated covering, for the inhabitation of the animal, 
of stony hardness. Yet in none of the genera of 
this family does the shell perform the function ot 
a dwelling-house for the animal: it is still more or 
less concealed by the flesh; not, indeed, imbedded 
in the substance of the mantle, but invested more 
or less completely by fleshy lobes or wing-like ex- 
pansions, that turn up on each side and embrace it. 
In the genus Scaphander, however, which includes 
the largest British species of the family, the shell 
is entirely exposed, the wing-like lobes being 
smaller than usual. 
In its texture the shell is generally thin, pellucid, 
and colourless, or nearly so, though in some of the 
species in which the family characters are be- 
L 
