DORIS PILOSA. 



generally partaking, more or less, of the colour of the body : they are occasionally freckled with 

 brown. Head surrounded by a short veil, produced at the sides into broad, flat oral tentacles, 

 rounded at the ends, and a little angulated in front : they vary in shape according to the 

 degree of expansion, and have usually a leaf-like appearance. Foot oblong, rounded at both 

 ends, and extending a little beyond the cloak when the animal is crawling. It is of the same 

 colour as the body, though usually rather paler, and, from its transparency, shows the liver, 

 forming a brown patch near the centre. The spicula are rather small and nodulous, in this 

 respect resembling those of a Goniodoris, to which genus, in some of its characters, this 

 species approximates. 



The Protean character of this common species makes it difficult to assign the limits of its 

 variation, and consequently several species have been constituted out of it ; we are now, how- 

 ever, inclined to consider all those we have given in our list of synonyms to be varieties of 

 the same. We were for some time unable to ascertain the species of Bomme on which the 

 Boris stellata of Gmelin was founded, having in vain attempted to find a copy of the work in 

 which it is described in the libraries of this country. Through the kindness of a friend, 

 however, we have been put in possession of a translation of Bomme's papers, with tracings of 

 the plates. From these we are enabled to state, that his species is certainly our Doris pilosa. 

 The description and figures are excellent, making a little allowance in the latter for the period 

 when they were published. u The back," he says, " is elevated in the form of an egg, and 



rounded behind ; the upper part of the body is as if covered with fur, this covering 



(cloak) is very rough, and clothed throughout with soft points." The pointed nature of the 

 papillae is also represented in the figures. Gmelin has, notwithstanding, rendered the 

 character by these words, " supra tuberculis obtusis aspersa :" and Cuvier and Lamarck have 

 each called the tubercles "rounded;" the former, perhaps, deceived by the contraction of 

 spirit specimens. We do not wonder, therefore, to find succeeding authors at a loss about this 

 Doris, or that Philippi should describe a species as Doris stellata, with the branchiae retractile 

 within a cavity. The branchial plumes of this species are contractile only, as is well described by 



Bomme : — " The most beautiful part of this little animal is the flower-like star on the rump 



This star is very sensitive ; at the slightest touch the animal draws it as firmly as possible 

 together :" — words perfectly describing the action, as we have frequently observed it. There 

 is no branchial cavity in this species. The Doris pilosa of Miiller is not quite so easily 

 recognised, the description and figures being much inferior to Bomme's ; but as succeeding 

 authors have generally agreed in referring it to the species now under consideration, and the 

 description, as far as it goes, is sufficiently appropriate, we have thought it best to retain the 

 name. Professor Loven, however, considers our species to be the D. fusca of Miiller, the 

 figure of which, in ' Zoologia Danica,' he states to have been inserted by mistake. That the 

 D. fusca of Loven's i Index' is the same as ours, we are enabled to state from the examination 

 of specimens obligingly sent to us by the author. Doris sublcevis of Thompson we refer to 

 this species, with some slight doubts. In this case, also, we have been kindly favoured with 

 an examination of the specimen described. In all its characters it agrees perfectly with 

 Doris pilosa, excepting that the cloak appears nearly smooth, a circumstance we are inclined 

 to attribute to its state of preservation ; we have seen living examples of the large variety, 

 with the papillae less conspicuous than in others. As to our own Doris similis, the principal 

 peculiarity of which is the want of the white star in the branchiae, we think it safest at 



