ELEDONE. 213 



both drawn from life, from different examples. The dif- 

 ferences will serve as warnings to those who would derive 

 specific characters in this genus from slight variations of 

 form and colour. The second of these figures (Plate MMM, 

 fig. 1) represents the attitude assumed by an individual 

 taken in the Sound of Skye, and placed in a large vessel 

 of salt-water, where it rested in the manner delineated, 

 adhering by its suckers, spreading out its webbed disk, car- 

 rying its funnel on one side, elongating its body, and curl- 

 ing two of its arms (the ventral ones) in such a manner 

 on the sides of the body that we might almost fancy that 

 they shadowed out, as it were, the shape of an argonaut 

 shell, to the tubercles of whose dorsal keel the graduation of 

 sizes of suckers much better correspond, in this case, than 

 do those which are seen on the webbed dorsal arms of the 

 constructor of the paper nautilus. When taken out of the 

 water the body at once assumed a more globular shape. 



We have taken the Eledone in twenty-five fathoms off 

 the coast of the Isle of Man, and in depths from twenty to 

 twenty-five fathoms among the Hebrides, and on the coast 

 of Donegal. Dr. Grant procured it in the Frith of Forth ; 

 Mr. Macgillivray at Aberdeen ; Mr. Alder on the Nor- 

 thumberland coast ; Dr. Johnston frequently in Berwick 

 bay ; Colonel Montagu on the coast of Devon ; Mr. Ball at 

 Youghall and Dublin. 



The aspect of the specimen represented in Plate NNN, 

 fig. 2, suggests that the animal described by Professor 

 Macgillivray under the name of Eledone Aldrovandi 

 (Mollusca of Aberdeenshire, page 32) may be only another 

 state, or slight variation of the same. We transcribe his 

 account of it : — 



" Body elliptical, somewhat flattened, much rounded at 

 the end ; with the surface even, smooth, and of a bluish- 



