THE CRIM80N 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 Confervce, 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 
