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IV. Notice of a Collection of Nudibranchiate MoUusca made in India by Walter Elliot, 

 Esq., with Descriptions of several New Genera and Species. By Joshua Alder 

 and Albany Hancock, F.L.S. 



Read May 12, 1863. 



[Plates XXVIII.— XXXIII.] 



I HE Nudibranchiate MoUusca which form the subject of the present paper were 

 collected, chiedy during the years 1853 and 1854, at Waltair, in the Presidency of 

 Madras, by Walter Elliot, Esq., of Wolfelee, Roxburghshire, while Commissioner of 

 the Northern Circars in that Presidency. They supply a most interesting addition to 

 our knowledge of the molluscan fauna of the Indian Seas, the more especially as Mr. 

 Elliot has not only preserved the animals themselves for examination, but has caused 

 beautiful and accurate drawings of each species to be made in the living state. These 

 drawings, from which the accompanying plates are engraved, were made by native 

 Hindoo artists. Besides the species here described, Mr. Elliot's collection contains 

 specimens and drawings of many other interesting MoUusca, in the allied families of 

 DiphyUidiada , Pleurobrancliidce, Bullida, and Aplysiada, which may possibly afford 

 materials for some future memoir. Mr. Elliot has favoured us with the following 

 account of the locality where most of the specimens were procured : — " Waltair is a 

 suburb of the town of Vizagapatam, the capital of a province of the same name, one of 

 the Northern Circars. The coast south of Vizagapatam is flat and sandy, with a heavy 

 surf, which is unfavourable to the existence of naked Mollusks ; but the whole of the 

 coast of Vizagapatam is rocky, and sometimes precipitous, abounding in bays filled with 

 rock and shingle, amongst which the delicate forms of the creatures you have been 

 describing find shelter. Immediately to the north of Waltair is one of these bays, called 

 Lawson's Bay, in which a large proportion of the specimens were found ; but I em- 

 ployed men to search along a more extended line, both north and south of the bay. 

 Most of the species were taken between tide-marks, and only one or two in deep water." 

 In addition to this fine collection, so kindly placed in our hands by Mr. Elliot, we 

 were favoured by the late Dr. Kelaart with a large collection of drawings, representing 

 the species described by him in the Ceylon branch of the ' Journal of the Royal Asiatic 

 Society,' together with many of the specimens preserved in spirit. These have afforded 



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