n shores of England, Mediterranean, Atlantic,
West Indies, New Zealand, attached to various objects. _A.
parasita_ has been always taken on Medusae.[42]

[42] It appears that Solander (Dillwyn Des. Cat., vol. i, p. 34)
observed a species of this genus adhering to a Medusa on the
coast of Brazil. Mr. Cocks informs me that an Alepas, apparently
_A. parasita_, has been cast on shore near Falmouth, attached to
a Cyanaea; and that two other specimens adhered to the bottom of a
vessel arriving at that port from Odessa.

_Affinities._--This genus differs from all, except Anelasma, in the
manner in which the striae-less muscles of the peduncle run up and
surround the capitulum, and likewise in the reticulated character of
the biliary envelope of the stomach. To Conchoderma, especially to _C.
aurita_, there is manifest affinity in the form of the horny scuta:
there is also some affinity to this same genus in the presence of
filamentary appendages though here little developed, and in the circular
form of the disc of the larval antennae, and, lastly, in the ovarian
tubes in _A. cornuta_ surrounding the capitulum. There is quite as
close, if not closer affinity to Ibla, in the following
peculiarities,--in the curved oesophagus,--in the general character of
the cirri and trophi, with the olfactory orifices in one species in some
degree prominent,--in the multi-articulated caudal appendages,--and in
the plainly-articulated penis, with its elongated unarticulated support,
though both these characters are exaggerated in Ibla. Lastly, the scuta
in Ibla, though not at all resembling in shape those of _A. cornuta_,
are formed without calcareous matter; and again, in Ibla, the muscles of
the peduncle run up to the bases of the valves, and so almost surround
the space in which the animal's body is lodged.

The four species of Alepas appear to form two little groups; viz. _A.
parasita_ and _A. minuta_ on the one hand, and _A. cornuta_ and _A.
tubulosa_ on the other.

1. ALEPAS MINUTA. Tab. III, fig. 5.

ALEPAS MINUTA. _Philippi._ Enumeratio Mollusc. Siciliae, 1836,
Tab. xii, fig. 23.

---- ---- _A. Costa._ Esercitazione Accadem., vol. ii, part I, Naples,
1840, Pl. iii, fig. 5 (secundum Guerin in Revue Zoolog.,
1841, p. 250.)

---- ---- _Chenu._ Illust. Conch., Pl. iii, figs. 8-10.

_A. apertura non prominente, capituli longitudinis vix tertiam partem
aequante: scutis corneis