100 Mr.C. W. Peach onthe Metamorphosis of a Polype-like Animal. 



at the bases of the stiffly turned- up tentacles, which were tipped 

 with a disk having a dark centre surrounded by a light ring, 

 and outside a darker edge, as seen at fig. 5. l)ark but short 

 bars were arranged in a quincunx manner on the tentacula, as 

 in fig. 9. 



Besides these long tentacula, there were four smaller and 

 shorter, also turned up, but not furnished with ocelli (as at 

 fig. 4, where the edge of the mantle is shown) ; on the lower 

 part of the mantle runs a canal communicating with the bulbs 

 of the larger tentacula. In this canal I observed spherical 

 granules passing along, and as if revolving in the bulbs and a 

 short way down each large tentacle; into these bulbs smaller 

 granules descended from the subumbrella by the gastro-vascular 

 canals. The latter extended to the upper part of the stomach, 

 as seen at fig. 8, the stomach being attached to them, rounded 

 on the upper part and divided into four lobes, as at fig. 6 ; it 

 then narrows and runs out in a campanulate form to the qua- 

 drate mouth, which has four long lips fimbriated at the tips, as 

 shown at fig. 6, and by the view from the under side at fig. 7. 



The animals were very active up to the 10th, when some little 

 change took place ; I supplied small quantities of water and used 

 every precaution, being anxious to see all I could of them. On the 

 11th they became sickly, and as figured in PL VIII. fig. 2; the 

 mouth, as at fig. 2 a ; the upper part of the umbrella, as at fig. 2 6, 

 in eight festoons, the tentacula drooping. On the 13th they were 

 nearly inactive, and turned inside out, with the tentacula folded 

 in the upper part, as at figs. 10 & 11. I began to hope, that, 

 as the mouth had become elongated into a peduncle-like form, 

 they were about to become fixed again ; they however dwindled 

 away, and although I kept the water for months, 1 could trace 

 nothing more. I have not yet seen Steenstrup's work on the 

 " Alternation of Generations," and therefore am unable to say 

 whether it may be one of the interesting facts observed by him. 

 They difi'ered in the fixed state from any of the zoophytes noticed 

 by Johnston, and when free, from all the naked-eyed Medusae 

 figured in Forbes^s Monograph. It may be one of the latter in 

 its earlier stage, and probably is, from its being pilose, as is 

 the case with many of the young of the Medusae w^hich have 

 fallen under my notice : I have seen many, but this is the most 

 interesting of all. The most like the free state is Lizzia octo- 

 punctata of Forbes, pi. 12. fig. 3; it agrees in the form of the 

 umbrella, in having eight tentacular bulbs and four gastro-vas- 

 cular canals, in the shape of the stomach, quadrate mouth and 

 long fimbriated lips. It differs in being pilose, and in having 

 only eight tentacula instead of twenty, viz. three at each large 

 bulb and two at each of the smaller ones. Even this difi'erence 



