EGGS OF NUDIBR ANGUS. 43 



you had made a thin ribbon of paste, half an inch wide, 

 and rolled it into a loose scroll of two or three turns, 

 and then affixed it by its edge to the under side of a 

 stone, is the spawn-mass of the Sea Lemon. And here 

 is a much more elegant scroll, of which the constituent 

 is a slender thread, twisted into a frilled or figure- 8 

 form, as it goes on to make the spire. 1 This has been 

 laid by the beautiful Crowned Eolis. If you examine 

 either of these masses with a lens, you will see that it 

 is composed of a vast multitude of white eggs, sus- 

 pended in a clear jelly, in which they are arranged in 

 transverse rows, giving the opaque appearance to what 

 would else be colourless and transparent. 



The eggs, watched day by day under a good micro- 

 scopic power, as they advance towards maturity, present 

 a most interesting object of study. The yolk, which at 

 first nearly fills the egg-shell, soon becomes a little 

 elongated, with one end diagonally truncated, 'or, as it 

 were, cut off obliquely ; the truncated end then becomes 

 two-lobed, "each lobe exhibiting an imperfect spiral, 

 and having its margin ciliated. The now animated 

 being is seen to rotate within its prison. Shortly the 

 lobes enlarge, and a fleshy process, the rudimentary 



1 Both these are depicted in Plate iv. That on the right of the picture 

 is the spawn of Doris tuberculata ; that on the left is the spawn of Eolis 

 coronata. 



