APLYSIA. 553 



plates. Reproductive orifices beneath the tentacula on 

 right side. Vent at the extremity of a tuLe. 



Few molhiscs have had greater popular fame, or a worse 

 character than the Apl^sicE. From very ancient times 

 they have been regarded with horror and suspicion, and 

 many writers on Natural History, conversant with them 

 only through the silly stories of ignorant fishermen, have 

 combined, in ancient and modern times, to hold them up 

 to censure for their poisonous qualities. To touch them, 

 according to Europeans, was sufficient to generate disease 

 in the fool-hardy experimenter ; whilst Asiatics, reversing 

 the consequences, maintained that they met with instan- 

 taneous death when handled by man. Physicians wrote 

 treatises on the effects of their poison, and discussed the 

 remedies best adapted to neutralize it. Conspirators 

 brewed nauseous beverages from their slimy bodies, and 

 administered the potion, confident of its deadly powers. 

 Every nation in the world, on whose shores the poor sea- 

 hares crawled, accorded to them the attributes of ferocity 

 and danger. Yet, strange to say, there does not a|)i)ear 

 to have been the slightest foundation for a belief in their 

 crimes. The Aplysia is a perfectly harmless, gentle, timid, 

 and, if observed in its native element, beautiful animal. 

 Its odour is sometimes, it is true, not over-pleasant, and 

 when irritated, it ejects a fluid, the vivid purple hue of 

 which may have excited alarm. Its shape, in which it 

 resembles more than most molluscs the body of some little 

 quadruped, attracted the attention of the curious ; but 

 why it should have excited their fears, and filled with 

 terror the muscular hearts of sturdy fishermen, is a problem 

 to be solved only when the predisposing causes of ground- 

 less superstitions shall have been sifted and traced to their 

 minutest roots. 



VOL. III. 4 B 



