The Astacill^e, having their residence among the tender corals, which can only 
fpread their beautiful forms in the calm and tranquillity of thofe regions of the deep, 
where winter (forms never have power to agitate the bottom, they only can be brought 
afhore with thofe peculiar cluders of coralines among which they dwell ; and the 
many chances againft falling in with any one rare and particular fpecies, in the wide 
extent of thefe their dwellings, fo remote from human eye, is an obvious caufe 
why many of thefe have been fo long, and may yet remain, undelineated and un- 
deferibed. 
And had it not been to (lrew the native manner in which thefe elegant produ&ions 
cluder together, the exhibition of them became a kind of necefiary appendage to 
any hiftorical account of the Astacill^;, in like manner as it is efteemed part of 
the hidory of caterpillars and infefls, to fpecify the plants and trees among which 
they refide, or on whofe leaves they feverally feed. 
Having never feen any good engraving of the finely feathered Doris, d, and un- 
certain if there is any to be found, feemed fufficient reafon for giving it a place in 
the annexed plate. Thefe feathers wave in the tide, and aid its progrefs while it 
glides along; as it can only creep by alternately extending and contrafling the muf- 
cular films, which conditute.the (kin of the under part of its body, its movements by 
the above are rendered more eafy : at the fame time, thefe feathers, from feveral 
appearances, feem to involve a fyftem of organs employed for inhaling feme degree 
of nourifhment or refrefhment from the water. 
Every more uncommon variety of Nature, even where peculiar beauty does not 
attrafl. our notice, is fo far engaging, that by the remarks and conclufions which 
they natively fugged, they have been ever found to afford feme of the mod refined 
and intereding pleafures to contemplative minds. 
The contributing in any degree to thefe, is' equally flattering to the efforts of 
genius, as it indulges the mod enlarged philanthropy, and mod elevated gratitude o> 
the human heart, » 
