BRITISH NUDIBRANCHIATE MOLLUSCA. 3 



country. Stanch disciples of the Linnean school, the British naturalists had applied 

 themselves to the study of species with much more alacrity than their more speculative 

 brethren of the Continent, and the Fauna of the British Islands had in consequence assumed 

 a more full and comprehensive form. One is disappointed, therefore, to find how very little 

 was until lately known of the Nudibranchiate Mollusca of our own shores. The ' British 

 Zoology' of Pennant, published in 1777, contains just three species, which he calls Doris 

 Argo, Doris verrucosa, and Doris electrica; the two former are common and conspicuous 

 animals that could scarcely be overlooked by a collector ; the latter is so imperfectly described 

 that it cannot now be identified. For more than twenty years after the publication of 

 Pennant's work, no further notice was taken of this neglected tribe. In 1802, however, 

 Montagu published in the 'Linnean Transactions' the first of his series of papers on the 

 marine animals of the Devonshire Coast. In these excellent papers twelve species of 

 Nudibranchiate Mollusca were described, all new to Britain, and, with the exception of two 

 or perhaps three species, then unknown to naturalists. They were all referred to the genus 

 Doris, which at that time was the general receptacle for most of the species of the order. In 

 such veneration, indeed, was the arrangement of the great Swedish naturalist then held by 

 English authors, that even his genera were considered sacred from the hand of innovation, 

 and each new form, however incongruous, was referred to some known Linnean genus. 

 Montagu, however, was too accurate a student of nature to avoid seeing the necessity of some 

 change, and in one of his later papers we find him proposing to admit the genus Tritonia of 

 Bosc, for a part of the Dorides, but still, in deference to the naturalists of the Linnean school, 

 he does not venture at once on such an innovation but reserves it for further consideration.* 

 The species described "by him are ; — Doris pinnatifida, D. ccerulea, D. Jlava, D. marginata, 

 D. maculata, D. longicornis, D. nodosa, D. papillosa, D. quadricornis, D. pennigera, D. pedata, 

 and D. bifida, none of which now belong to the restricted genus Doris, but are distributed into 

 seven different genera. Unfortunately, several of them have not since been met with. We 

 have used every exertion to ascertain the species described by Montagu, pursuing our 

 investigations in the localities where they were found. Some of them, however, have entirely 

 eluded our search, and one or two others we can only with doubt refer to species known to be 

 common on the Devonshire Coast, and, therefore, likely to have been met with by that 

 naturalist. Dr. Turton's 'British Fauna' appeared in 1807, and contained nine species of 

 JSudibrancldata, only one of which was introduced from personal observation; three were those 

 of Pennant, and five of Montagu. The species introduced by Turton he calls Doris vermigera. 

 It was, without doubt, the common Eolis papillosa, afterwards described by Montagu in the 

 c Linnean Transactions.' 



Another period of twenty years passed after the discoveries of Montagu, during which 

 this tribe was scarcely noticed by any British author, though in the latter part of this period, 

 Dr. Leach appears to have paid some attention to the subject while collecting materials for his 

 work on the British Mollusca,f which, owing to the distressing illness that obscured his latter 

 days, remained long unpublished, and has only just appeared, edited by his. friend and former 

 pupil, Dr. J. E. Gray. Had this work appeared at the time when it was written, much 

 interest would have attached to it, as Dr. Leach had the merit of being the first English 



* ' Linn. Trans./ v. 11, p. 196. f f A Synopsis of the Mollusca of Geeat Britain/ 



