454 
NATURAL-HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS. 
M. Rang’s Zoological Researches in the Mediterranean. Extracted from a 
Letier to Baron de Ferussac. 
Toulon, 1st September 1829. 
You wiil doubtless feel interested in the results of my first researches in the 
Mediterranean, of which I shall here present a brief account. 
In the harbour of Toulon I found two dorises which I have not seen figured 
in your plates, and which I am much disposed to look upon asnewe These two 
animals are singularly remarkable for the beauty and lustre of their colours. I 
found, moreover, several beautiful species of Ascidize and a Lima, differing from 
all those already known. 
The first molluscous animal which I gathered at sea is your magnificent Octopus 
veliferus ; at least so I supposed from the three broad membranes which connect 
four of its arms. I found it at a short distance from the coast of the kingdom 
of Valencia, in the stomach of a (donite,) Scomber, which had no doubt just swal- 
lowed it, for, although it gave no signs of life, it yet did not appear to have suf- 
fered from the effect of digestion. I was thus enabled to obtain its characters in 
an accurate manner, and to make a good coloured drawing, of which you had 
none. This individual was not so large as yours, and its three membranes, 
which I saw entire, present, when unfolded, a very large fan. ‘The four arms 
which support them are larger than the others, especially the two extreme ones. 
Lastly, its general colour is purplish-red, very deep, and finely dotted with 
brown. 
Having experienced some days of calm weather, I met with various charming 
Pterpoda; among others, Cleodora lanceolata and Lessonii. The latter, which 
is only as yet known by the figure which I have given of it in the plates of our 
Monograph of the Péeronoda, and which was sent to me by M. Lesson, who found 
it in the seas of New Holland, is very common in the western part ef the Medi- 
terranean, and if it was not sooner known, it was doubtless because the precau- 
tion which I use has not generally been taken, of seizing every thing that comes 
to the surface of the sea at the moment of sunset, in calm weather. I am still 
convinced that it is in general then only that the Pteropoda come to the surface to 
respire pure air. The Creseides presented themselves not less abundantly than 
in the ocean. They were C. striata, virgula and clava. The latter gave me 
an opportunity of observing, for the first time, the product of generation, which 
discloses itself under the form of a glairy matter enveloping all the anterior and 
external part of the shell. Nor had I before observed in these animals the po- 
sition of the heart. When they are alive it is easily distinguished by its pulsa- 
tions, and by means of a glass, at the posterior part of the body. 
The genus Dio afforded me a new species remarkable for its small size, its 
oblong form, its purple colour, and its wings resembling in form the ventral fins 
of fishes. It often contracts so as to take the form of a ball, from which, how- 
ever, the caudal extremity still escapes, which gives it the appearance of a small 
tadpole. It also belongs to the coasts of Spain. 
I had the good fortune to meet with a Pteropodous animal which, when better 
known to me, will certainly form a new genus in the family of Hyalee. Un- 
fortunately I had only a single individual of it, and besides so small, that I have 
only been able to obtain from it the most superficial characters. This animal 
did not present a distinct head, but two small opposite and equal fins, connected 
together by a small intermediate lobe, precisely as in the Hyalee. As to the 
shell, it is glassy and transparent in the highest degree, spiral and turbinate ; its 
aperture is round, with the eggs not continuous; it has io umbilicus, and I was 
able to count five turns of the spire. This singular little Pteropodous mollus- 
cum is certainly related to the genus Limacina ; but it- seems to me that the 
