602 



MEDUSAE OF THE WORLD. 



This species is abundant along the temperate coasts of Australia and is found in Port 

 Philip, Victoria, in large numbers from January to March. It is described in great detail by 

 von Lendenfeld, who finds that the embryos remain attached to the mouth-arms until "they 

 are nearly matured to young scyphostomae"; they then affix themselves to bodies in the 

 water and produce a long stalk with a chitinous perisarc and 8 arms (tentacles ?). Accord- 

 ing to von Lendenfeld the ephyra develops into an adult medusa by a complicated meta- 

 morphosis. The lappets of the umbrella are said to be produced by fission, but this state- 

 ment probably applies only to the ocular lappets, not to the 8 primary ephyra lobes. 



In the variety purpura from Melbourne Harbor, Australia, the mouth-curtains are rich 

 purple throughout, and in the variety margmata from Sydney their free-margins are purple, 

 but elsewhere they are colorless. 



FIG, 383. Drymonena "victoria" after Haeckel, in Deep-sea Medusae of the Challenger Expedition. 



Cyanea mullerianthe Haacke, from St. Vincent Gulf, South Australia, is a delicately 

 pink-colored variety of this medusa, and Desmonema rosea Agassiz and Mayer is the same 

 medusa when young and in the stage wherein the tentacles of each cluster arise in a single row. 



Desmonema annasethe Haeckel, 1 880, may be a young contracted specimen of this medusa. 

 The 16 so-called feathered, radiating ribs of the exumbrella present the appearance of being 

 due to unnatural contraction. The tentacles arise in 8 U-shaped groups with 13 to 17 ten- 

 tacles in each crescent. This form is described by Haeckel from a preserved specimen found 

 off the west coast of South Africa. Color (?) 



Dendy, 1889 (Proc. Royal Soc. Victoria, p. 1 12), describes parasitic actinian larvae found 

 upon the mouth-curtains of the Cyanea of Port Phillip, Victoria. 



