38 



NUDIBRANCHS. 



The gills may be seen spreading like a feathery 

 plume, or a radiating flower, on the upper surface 

 of the creature. The position of the branchiae is 

 by no means uniform, for indeed the most fertile 

 imagination would hardly venture to depict such 

 fantastic forms as are found among the Nudi- 

 branchs, or, if they were depicted, could hope 

 that such wondrous shapes should be received by 

 men as existing in the same world with them- 

 selves. 



Some species, like those whose shape has been 

 already alluded to, are nearly flat, and wear their 

 lungs much as a gentleman wears a bouquet, 

 in his button-hole. Others have their lungs 

 neatly arranged round their bodies in little 

 spreading tufts, so that the creature has some- 

 thing the aspect of a floriated coronet. Some 

 have their whole dorsal surface thickly studded 

 with lungs, so that it would bear a decided 

 resemblance to a hedgehog, were it not that the 

 spikes must be semitransparent, and tinged with 

 the most exquisite colours. Again, there are 

 some species which carry their lungs at a distance 

 from their bodies, and present them to the waves 

 as if they were holding the branchiae in the 

 hands of their outstretched arms; while there 

 are some whose forms are so utterly unique and 



