SOLMARIDAE, 81 



between the gastric pockets are deeper than the incisions in the radii of the 

 tentacles, just as Maas has figured them ; a feature suggesting that the former 

 are more primitive than the latter. 



Color. — The pigmentation of this species (PI. 9, fig. ^) is one of its most 

 characteristic features ; it closely resembles the figures given by Maas of 

 A. grimaldii and of A. weberi. As in those species, it is entirely confined to the 

 endoderm. The central stomach and gastric pockets are deep chocolate red, 

 which is almost black after preservation. The large eggs appear white, 

 apparently because they are so opaque as to hide the heavily pigmented 

 endoderm. The marginal zone is of a pale reddish tint. 



It appears that, like other intermediate Medusae, this is a widely dis- 

 tributed species, having been taken in the Atlantic and in the Eastern 

 Tropical Pacific. 



Solmaridae Haeckel, 1879. 



sens. em. 



Narcomedusae without gastric pockets, the genital products being devel- 

 oped, either as thickenings or diverticula in the oral wall of the central 

 stomach ; with or without peripheral canals and otoporpae. 



As modified above, this family includes the Solmaridae and Peganthidae 

 of Haeckel, which were separated by the presence or absence of a canal 

 system ; a feature I believe to be of but slight systematic importance. This 

 character does, however, seem to be at least of generic value in this group 

 (even if not in the Cunanthidae) ; and it, together with presence or absence 

 of otoporpae, separates the family into two subfamilies, one with, the other 

 without, canals and otoporpae. These two subfamilies, the former corre- 

 sponding to the Peganthidae, the latter to the Solmaridae of Haeckel, bear 

 to each other much the same relation as do the two subdivisions of the 

 Cunanthidae, i. e. on one hand Cunina and Cunoctantha with canal system 

 and otoporpae, and on the other Solmissus without canals or otoporpae. 



Under the first of these subdivisions (Peganthidae) Haeckel ('79) has 

 distinguished four genera, viz., Polycolpa, Polyxenia, Pegasia, and Pegantha, 

 distinguishing between them by differences in the conformation of the gonads. 

 The distinctions between these genera are so slight, even if not due, in 

 part at least, to different stages in the growth of the gonads, that it seems 

 to me very doubtful whether all of them are valid. Thus Polycolpa, with a 

 simple ring-like gonad, is probably nothing more than an early stage in the 



