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ASCIDIA

Volume 1 · 84 words · 1778 Edition

a genus of animals belonging to the order of vermes mollusca. The body is cylindrical, and fixed to a shell, rock, &c. It has two apertures; one on the summit, the other lower, forming a beak. There are six species of this animal, viz. the papillosum, gelatinosum, intellectalis, quadridentata, rufica, and echinata; only one of which, viz. the rufica *, is found in Plate XLII. of the British seas. Animals of this genus have the faculty of squirting out the water they take in.