Medusae of the Philippines and of Torres Straits. 161 



Only one Scyphomedusa (Catostylus mosaicus) and one hydro- 

 medusa (Eutima australis, nov. sp.) are possibly peculiar to Australia; 

 all the others are of wide distribution. Of the six Scyphomedusae 

 which we collected, two are widely distributed over the Pacific and 

 three others are known both from the tropical Atlantic and the Pacific. 

 Similarly, of the ten hydromedusae, three are widely ranging Pacific 

 species and six others are found in both the Atlantic and Pacific. It 

 appears that along the east coast of Queensland and the southeast 

 coast of Papua is one of the poorest regions in the tropical world for 

 medusae, containing almost nothing peculiar to itself; whereas the region 

 of the Philippines and northern shores of New Guinea is one of the 

 richest. This appears to be another illustration of the influence of a 

 great ocean current, the rich region of the Philippines being in the 

 sweep of the Japan Stream, whereas there is no well-defined current 

 along the southern shore of Papua or off the Barrier Reef of Queensland. 

 As is well known, H. B. Bigelow, in his report upon the siphonophorse 

 of the Albatross, shows how abundant these forms are in the Humboldt 

 current off the west coast of South America and how poor the region is 

 in the mid-Pacific to the westward of this great current. Our studies 

 made while assistant upon Dr. Alexander Agassiz's expeditions to the 

 tropical Pacific, as well as upon the recent expedition to Torres Straits 

 and Papua, show that the whole great belt of the South Tropical Pacific, 

 from the western edge of the Humboldt current to the shores of 

 Australia, is poor in pelagic life. A number of local medusae appear 

 in some of the large island groups, as in Fiji, but the region as a whole 

 is poor in forms peculiar to itself and even those of wide distribution 

 are, generally speaking, found only occasionally over this great desert 

 of ocean. 



While in Australia we saw no swarms of Scyphomedusse other than 

 a great number of specimens of the cobalt-blue form of Catostylus 

 mosaicus L. Agassiz, in the estuary of the Brisbane River, Queensland, 

 in September. These medusae appeared to be of all sizes, and as we 

 saw them also in April and May 1896 in the same locality they may 

 possibly breed throughout the year. 



A single specimen of a variety of Cassiopea andromeda was found 

 at Badu Island in Torres Straits, and Mastigias papua was common in 

 the harbor of Port Moresby, Papua, in November. 



Aurellia labiata was occasionally seen in Torres Straits, and this 

 scyphomedusa is known only from the Pacific; but on July 27, 1913, 

 a perfect adult specimen, intermediate in character between A. aurita 

 and A . labiata, was found at Tortugas, Florida. A detailed description 

 of this individual will be found in the text of this article. In this con- 

 nection it will be recalled that Vanhoffen finds that the Pacific form of 

 Linuche, called L. aquila, appears also as a variety of the Linuche ungui- 

 culata of the tropical Atlantic, and it seems possible that in Aurellia 



