VAN BENEDEN J S OBSERVATIONS. 133 



The astonishment of Prof. Van Beneden on first 

 discovering the Medusiparous character of the Cam- 

 panularire seems to have fully equalled that of Sir 

 John Dalyell, and his account of the phenomenon is 

 very similar to that given above. 



Happening to have in his aquarium sundry speci- 

 mens of these zoophytes, he was occupied one morn- 

 ing, as usual, in examining them with a lens, when he 

 perceived the water to be crowded with hundreds of 

 minute Medusae, some of which he caught for the 

 purpose of examining them under the microscope, and 

 then proceeded to make an accurate drawing of one 

 of them, preparatory to writing a description of its 

 appearance. In about an hour afterwards, on again 

 looking at this specimen, he was amazed to find its 

 shape altogether changed, and the animal apparently 

 turned inside out. The marginal tentacles seemed to 

 be reversed in their position, the umbrella-like disc 

 from being convex had become concave, and the cen- 

 tral pedicle of the Medusa seemed converted into the 

 stem of a solitary polyp ; here, however, his obser- 

 vations ceased, and we commend to the special atten- 

 tion of our sea-side naturalists his further notions 

 relative to the history of the Medusa-like polyp, in 

 order that they may be either verified or disproved by 

 actual examination of what really takes place. 



" My observations," says Professor Van Beneden, 

 " go no further ; but, although I have not seen the 

 polyp (Medusa) give origin to a polyp-stem, I ob- 

 served it up to the moment when it was about to form 

 a new colony ; and without fear of deceiving ourselves, 

 we may form by analogy some idea of the changes 



