248 PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. 



attractive object. Its true position is evidently between the genera 

 Modeeria and Euphysa, since it possesses characters common to each, 

 though at the same time its own peculiarities are sufficiently well 

 marked to entitle it to rank as a distinct genus. But, though now first 

 described as a British Acaleph, it is doubtful whether it has not already 

 been observed elsewhere. Steenstrup, when treating of the development 

 of the claviform polypes, in the second chapter of his essay on the " Alter- 

 nation of Generation," describes a species of coryne, which he met with in 

 Iceland, in the year 1840, from the base of the head of which certain 

 bell -shaped bodies depended. Prom this circumstance he denominated 

 the zoophyte * Coryne fritillwria." These bell-shaped bodies were 

 furnished with ocelli, and after undergoing certain changes became de- 

 tached from the body of the parent ahimal, and swam about in the water 

 as free Medusa-like creatures. On a subsequent occasion, and in the 

 same locality, he met with a free Medusa closely resembling the detached 

 campanulate bodies just mentioned, differing from these last only in size, 

 and by the presence of a lobate organ attached to the base of the ten- 

 tacles. On comparing the representation of my Medusa with the figure 

 and description of Steenstrup, the resemblance between the two will be 

 found sufficiently striking. I think it probable that this Acaleph, 

 though not, perhaps, identical with that described by the Danish Profes- 

 sor, is so closely allied that we may consider it the Medusoid of some 

 species of Coryne. It is distinct from the Medusoid of the Syneoryne 

 sarsii described in 1843 by Dujardin, under the name of Cladonema, 

 which agreed with the Medusoids obtained lately at Bamborough by 

 Mr. Alder, and " referred by him to the Coryne Listeria We cannot, 

 in all cases, be acquainted with the zoophyte to which certain Medu- 

 soids should be referred; this should not hinder us from describing and re- 

 cording any of the latter animals with which we come in contact 

 (see Forbes, page 72). It is much to be regretted that the develop- 

 ment of our native Tubulariadse has as yet been insufficiently studied. 



Steenstrtjpia Owenh, n. s. {mild). Plate XV., Fig. 8, a. 

 This Medusa is y'^th of an inch in length; umbrella nearly globular, 

 slightly contracted near its orifice; the sub-umbrella occupies rather more 

 than two-thirds the length of the umbrella, with which it is connected by 

 a cord. Bound the margin are four elongated ocelli or tentacular bulbs, 

 of a pale-yellow fawn colour, very similar to those in S. flaveola ; only 

 one of those is furnished with a tentacle. The latter is five and a half 

 times the length of the umbrella, of a moniliform and granular struc- 

 ture. Bound the base of this tentacle three tubercular bodies had their 

 origin, evidently the granules of future Medusae ; two of these were in 

 a low state of advancement ; the third presented distinct traces of an in- 

 terior cavity. The radiating canals were four in number, very conspicu- 

 ous and broad. From the centre of the sub-umbrella depended a short, 

 broad peduncle, of the same colour as the vessels and tentacular bulbs. 

 "Within the peduncle at its base was a cluster of cells forming the ovary. 

 Except in the form of its umbrella the present differs little from the pre- 



