LEPTOMEDUS/E — STAUROPHORA, SAPHENIA. 29.'! 



mertensii of the Aleutian Islands, North Pacific, inclines me to believe that our American 

 Staurophora is identical with the Pacific form and should be called S. mertensii. A direct 

 comparison of specimens is necessary in order to determine this positively, but the figures 

 published by Brandt might certainly have been drawn from our Staurophora of the coast of 

 Maine, United States. 



Hartlaub, 1897, finds that the young medusa grows rapidly if fed upon copepods. 



Staurophora falklandica Browne. 



Staurophora falklandica, Browne, 1908, Trans. Royal Soc. Edinburgh, vol. 46, part 2, p. 235, plate I, figs. 1-8. 



This medusa from the Falkland Islands, South Atlantic, resembles the Arctic <S'. mertensii 

 in all respects excepting that in the single specimen studied by Browne, the small tentacles 

 lack ocelli; they may, however, be young tentacles which are destined later to develop ocelli. 

 The Falkland Islands medusa was 90 mm. wide, with several hundred tentacles, half of 

 which are very short (young?) and alternate with the others. Only the large tentacle-bulbs 

 bear ocelli on their inner sides near the velum. Clubs alternate regularly with the tentacles. 

 Browne failed to find concretions upon sectioning the medusa, but they may possibly have 

 been destroyed by the preservative fluid. 



It is possible that this medusa is identical with the Arctic S. mertensii, and if this be 

 true, it is one of those remarkable forms whose distribution is bipolar, but which are not 

 known in tropical regions. 



Subfamily EUTIMINjE. 



Eucopidae with 8 adradial lithocysts, stomach mounted upon a long, gelatinous peduncle, 

 tentacles arising from the bell-margin. 



Genus SAPHENIA Eschscholtz, 1829. 



Saphenia, Eschscholtz, 1829, Syst. der Acalephen, p. 92. — Lesson, 1843, Hist. Nat. Zooph. Acal., p. 325. — Agassiz, L., 1862, 

 Cont. Nat. Hist. U. S., vol. 4, p. 363. — Haeckel, 1879, Syst. der Medusen, p. 193. — Bedot, 1901, Revue Suisse de Zoo!., 

 tome 9, p. 486; Ibid., tome 13, p. 146. — Browne, 1895, Proc. and Trans. Liverpool Biol. Assoc, vol. 9, p. 282; 1896, 

 Proc. Zool. Soc. London, p. 493. 



Plancia, Forbes, 1853, Trans. Edinburgh Roy. Soc, vol. 20, p. 311. 



Goodsirea, Wright, 1859, Edinburgh New Philosoph. Journ., vol. 10, plate 9. 



Siphonorynchus, Metschnikoff, 1870, Verhandl. Gesell. Freunde Naturwissen. Moskau, p. 352. 



Eschscholtz, 1829, established this genus for 3 medusae. The first described is called 

 Saphenia balearica and is merely a regenerating Geryonia. The second species mentioned is 

 Saphenia bitentaculata from the Straits of Gibraltar, and this becomes the type of the genus. 



GENERIC CHARACTERS. 



Eucopidae with only 2 well-developed, radially placed tentacles, 180 apart. 8 adradial 

 lithocysts and numerous cirri or marginal warts. Stomach mounted on a gelatinous pedun- 

 cle. Gonads upon the 4 radial-canals. Hydroid unknown. 



These rare and occasional medusae have all been found in European waters. Cunning- 

 ham, 1891, is the only naturalist who has ever found a large swarm of them, but he captured 

 some hundreds of specimens of S. graeilts off the Eddystone, English Channel, on the night 

 of July 16, 1891. 



Saphenia may be regarded as an arrested Eutnna in which only 2 of the long tentacles 

 are developed. Indeed, Browne goes so far as to state that it is possible that "Saphenia" is 

 only a stage in the development of some species of Eutima. 



H 



