D. iris Cooper. State coll. species 959.
Pale purple, varying to orange red, foot narrowly edged with white, tentacles with white tips and a subterminal orange ring, branchial processes purple, the smaller ones sometimes olive near the base. Length of largest specimens 3, breadth 0.50 inch.
Several found on the beach at Santa Barbara, May 5th, having been washed ashore by an unusually heavy sea, occurring at a very low stage of the tide. One, also, dredged on seaweed, from a depth of 28 fathoms, two miles off shore.
This species seems more variable in color than the other nudibranchiata of this coast, but I saw no reason for considering them of more than one species. Those washed ashore being somewhat injured, although still alive, I made no drawing of them, and the more perfect one dredged was too small for this purpose.
In the “Mollusca and Shells,” of the U. S. Exploring Expedition under Commodore Wilkes, Dr. Gould mentions a species of Dendronotus collected at Puget Sound, but does not name it or give any clue to its characters, except that the branchiæ have white tips, unlike our specimens. It is very probable, however, that it belongs to the same species, as so many of the Mollusca of this coast have an equally wide range.
Æolis Cuvier, 1798.
Æ. barbarensis Cooper. State coll. species 978.
Rose-red, longer tentacles tipped with yellow, branchial ciliæ simple, in six longitudinal rows, all short, the middle rows longest and tipped with blue, anterior tentacles two, above the mouth, dorsal tentacles club-shaped, a white streak extending from the median line between them to the mouth. Length nearly an inch.
One specimen dredged on a rocky bottom, in a depth of 16 fathoms, a mile from the shore at Santa Barbara.
Although small, its characters are too different from those of our other species, when of the same size, to allow us to consider it the young of any of them.