REPORT ON THE NUDIBRANCHIATA. 
11 
Half a century later 1 another communication was made to the Royal Society by the 
learned A. P. du Pont, on some specimens of the same animal which had been sent to him 
by a friend in Jamaica. Gmelin, ignorant of the earlier memoir of Breyn, established, on 
the strength of the latter memoir of Du Pont, a new species, which is described in his 
Systema Naturae 2 under the name of Doris racliata. Previously, however, to the publica- 
tion of Gmelin’s work, the animal had been recognised as the type of a new genus by Forster. 
The two Forsters (J. Reinhold and George), who accompanied Captain Cook on his second 
voyage, observed the animal during the cruise to the Cape, and the elder Forster gave it 
the name Glaucus (“nomen ex deo marino et colore animalis”) 3 4 . Forster seems to have kept 
up a correspondence with Blumenbach, and to have sent him an account of the new genus, 
which was published in his manual of natural history. Gmelin also had received, either 
from Forster himself or from Blumenbach, some account of Glaucus, but he does not 
seem to have perceived the identity of this form with the Mollusc which he had already 
described as Doris radiatad A few years later (1795) Poli changed the name into Glauco- 
derma. 5 The elder Forster (J. R.) left among his papers a short treatise on the genus 
Glaucus, which was subsequently published by Blumenbach, with additional notes, inVoigt’s 
Magazin, 6 and about the same time a figure of the animal by Blumenbach appeared in the 
5th part of his Abbilclungen Nat. Gegenst. 7 From these two last mentioned publications 
dates our knowledge of this animal. Cuvier 8 adopted the generic name of Glaucus, chiefly, 
however, on account of the description given of the animal by the French naturalist 
Peron. 9 
After Forster several French naturalists who accompanied various scientific expeditions 
published descriptions of this interesting form. La Martiniere, who was the companion 
of La Peyrouse, and shared his fate, sent some scientific communications with remarks on 
these animals to the editors of the Journal de Physique ; an abstract of these is to be 
1 An account of a remarkable marine insect, Phil. Tram., vol. liii., 1763, pp. 57, 58, pi. iii. 
2 Systema Naturae, vi., 1780, p. 3105. 
3 G. Forster, loc. cit., p. 49. “Monday, 14th Sept. 1772. We had also at various intervals found the sea covered 
with animals belonging to the class of Mollusca, one of which, of a blue colour, in shape like a snail, with four arms 
divided into many branches, was named Glaucus atlanticus.” 
4 With his usual carelessness, Gmelin (loc. cit., p. 3149) had not remarked that the “vermis marinus” of La 
Martiniere was a form nearly identical with the species of Du Pont, and considered it to be a “Clio.” 
5 The Glaucus of Klein (Hist. nat. pise, missi., v., 1749, p. 3), seems to be the Naucrates of Rafinesque. 
6 Voigt, Magazin, v. 4, April 1803, p. 336, Taf. viii. This “Magazin fur den neuesten Zustand der Naturkunde” 
(i.-xii., 1796-1806) is not to be confounded with the continuation of Lichtenberg’s “ Magazin fur das Neueste aus der 
Physik und Naturgeschichte ” (i.-xii., 1781-1797), which was also edited by Voigt. The article cited here is found 
reproduced in Lichtenberg’s, Forsteri descript, animal., 1844, pp. 10-12. 
i Blumenbach, Abbild.-Natur. Gegenst, i-x., 1796-1810, Taf. xlviii. 
8 Ann. du Museum, vi., 1805, p. 426, Regne anim., &c. 
9 P4ron (Peron et Lesueur, Hist, de la fam. des moll. Pterop., pp. 75, 80, pi. ii. fig. 9, — Glaucus australis, Ann. 
du Mus., t. xv., 1810) regarded Glaucus as belonging to the Pteropoda, although Cuvier had already, only by 
the help of Peron’s drawings, assigned the animal to its proper place (“ in the neighbourhood of the Scyllaeas and 
Tritonice”). 
