At several parts of the Scottish coast, and especially at North Berwick, may be found specimens of that curious gasteropod named the Aplysia, or Sea-Hare, the Lepus marinus of the ancients.

On visiting North Berwick during summer, I have been astonished to discover, in almost every pool, from two to twenty of these creatures.

At rest, the Aplysia is not by any means inviting, but when in motion, elevating and depressing the fleshy mantle that covers over the fringed and lobed branchiÆ, its appearance is exceedingly graceful.

Striding across a pool on the look-out for some Gobies, whose forms darting beneath a large stone had not escaped my glance, I perceived the water in the rocky basin gradually lose its crystal brightness, and become changed to crimson. The Gobies were therefore allowed to rest in peace, while I proceeded to investigate a phenomenon that, at the moment, seemed somewhat singular.

A kind friend and brother zoologist, who happened to be near, called attention to the fact that the crimson stream flowed thickest near where my foot rested.

On closely examining the spot pointed out, and turning over some fronds of Dulse, we came upon a small fleshy ball of a dark brown colour, from which there still issued a fluid of vivid crimson hue. Having placed this strange object in a bottle, I soon pronounced it to be an Aplysia, with whose full-length portrait, as represented in books, I had previously been made acquainted.

The power which this animal possesses, under irritation, of spurting out a peculiar secretion, I also remembered to have seen mentioned by several writers on natural history.

Although generally believed to be gentle and perfectly harmless, yet, as Professor Forbes observes, few molluscs have had a worse character than the AplysiÆ. From very ancient times they have been regarded with horror and suspicion; and many writers on natural history, conversant with them only through the silly stories of ignorant fishermen, have combined to hold them up as objects of detestation. To touch them, according to European prejudices, was sufficient to generate disease in the foolhardy experimenter; while Asiatics, reversing the consequences, maintained, perhaps with greater truth, that they met with instantaneous death when handled by man. Physicians wrote treatises on the effects of their poison, and discussed the remedies best adapted to neutralize it. Conspirators brewed nauseous beverages from their slimy bodies, and administered the potion confident of its deadly powers. Every nation in the world on whose shores the poor Sea-Hares crawled, accorded to them the attributes of ferocity and malignant virulence, although there never appears to have been the slightest foundation for a belief in their crimes.

A specimen of the Aplysia that I had in my tank deposited a stringy coil of spawn, which closely resembled that of the Eolis, with the exception that the eggs, instead of being white, were of a reddish tint.