102 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



dusae with simple, quadrangular oesophagus, without oral arms; with simple oral opening, 

 usually sixteen broad radial pouches (eight ocular and eight tentacular), more rarely 

 32 to 04. Usually eight sense clubs (four perradial and four interradial), more rarely 16 

 to 32. Alternating with these an equal number of short, solid tentacles. Usually 16 

 (rarely 32 to 64) marginal lobes, with or without simple lobe pouches, always without 

 branched lobe canals; four interradial or eight adradial genitalia in the subumbral gastral 

 wall. 



Sub-family, Nausithoid^e, Haeckel, 1879. 



Ephyridae with eight sense clubs and eight adradial tentacles, with sixteen marginal 

 lobes and eight separate adradial genitalia. 



Nauphanta, 1 Haeckel, 1879. 



Ephyrid with eight sense clubs and eight tentacles, with sixteen marginal lobes and 

 thirty-two lobe pouches (sixteen ocular and sixteen tentacular). Central stomach 

 opened by four perradial gastral openings into a ring sinus, from whose distal margin 

 run out sixteen coronal pouches ; eight separate adradial genitalia, equally distributed, 

 not grouped in pairs. 



The genus Nauphanta is, as yet, represented only by the remarkable deep-sea 

 Medusa described below. It is most closely allied to the Mediterranean Nausithoe 

 among all Medusas hitherto known, but is distinguished from it by peculiar conditions 

 of structure. The sculpture of the exumbrella with its deeply insected coronal furrow 

 between the central disc and the peripheric corona, and with the very prominent pedalia 

 (polyhedric gelatinous swellings between the radial furrows) reminds us strikingly of the 

 Periphyllidse and Collaspidae ; in other respects it appears to be a very old intermediate 

 form connecting among Peromedusae, Cubomedusae, and Discomedusae ; as it is closely 

 related morphologically to all these groups, it indicates the common descent of the 

 Ephyroniae and Tesseroniae. Nauphanta takes the highest place among the three genera 

 of the Nausithoidae, and represents the most highly developed form among the octomeral 

 Ephyridse. In many respects it approaches the following polymeral Collaspidae. It 

 agrees with the closely-allied Zonephyra and Pelayia in having thirty-two lobe pouches, 

 whilst it differs from them both in the formation of the reproductive organs. These 

 comport themselves the same as in Nausithoe, and form eight roundish adradial sacs, 

 similar in form and at equal distance from each other. The two specimens before me, a 

 male and a female, are perfectly mature. The ovaries are eight tuberous, scutiform plates, 

 whose endodermal upper surface is covered with very large ova. Instead of these plates 

 the spermaria form numerous digitate spermatic sacs. The developed pedalia of the 

 corona of the exumbrella remind us of the Peromedusae (Periphylla) on the one hand, 



1 NatxpivTTi, the name of a ship in Aristophanes. 



