almost to sever the terminal part carrying the 

 mouth and atrophied tentacles. I now realize that 

 in this segmenting of the larval jellyfish, I am 

 witnessing what is known as the "strobilization of 

 the scyphistoma!' 



A day or so later the tentacles at the top of each 

 strobila larva are gone. In place of the tentacles 

 is a fringe of lappets, eight in number. The mouth- 

 parts are produced into four veil-like appendages 

 which now function as a food-snare in lieu of the 

 vanished tentacles. 



But look! What has happened to the remainder 

 of the diminutive brutes' bodies'? The constric- 

 tions are so pronounced that each youngster would 

 seem almost to be completely divided into sepa- 

 rate thin segments resembling a pile of tiny 

 saucers, each saucer nesting compactly in the hol- 

 low of the one underneath. These various saucer- 

 like segments are, in descending order from the 

 top, obviously at different stages of development 

 — each being smaller in diameter than its neigh- 

 bor above, and resembling less and less the top- 

 most disk until the foot is reached. This lowermost 

 supporting segment is the only remaining one 

 bearing its octet of tentacles. 



[376] 



