156 THE SCYPHOMEDUSSE OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE, 



By this essay I hope to enable those who interest themselves in 

 the subject to identify any of the Scyphomedusse which they may 

 find, and to describe it, in case it is new. It is only possible 

 to augment our knowledge if we make all the use we can of the 

 previous work done in the same field. 



SCYPHOMEDUS^. Ray Lankaster. 



The Scyphomedusse form according to Haeckel (1) the second 

 Legion of the Classis Medusse. He uses Gegenbaur's name Acras- 

 pedee for them. The difference between these Acraspedge and 

 the other Medusse, the Craspedota, is however so great that I 

 prefer to dwell on them separately. 



All the large Jelly-fish or Blubbei'S of our shores appear to belong 

 to this group, although there exist Medusae belonging to the 

 Craspedotse which are very similar to them in appeai'ance. The 

 great difference lies in the sessile zooids on which these Medusae, 

 which are the sexual generation of the Hydrozoa, bud. 



While the Craspedotae originally budded from Hydroid Polyps, 

 (a process which has in many cases been done away with) the 

 Scyphoinedusee bad from a Scyphostoma which is fundamentally 

 different from and much highly organized, than a Hydroid Polyp. 

 I intend to dwell on this subject in another paper. 



In the accompanying list, all species from the Southern Hemis- 

 phere which have been described are enumerated. 



The statistical table verifies the above statements of the preva- 

 lence of the southern Scyphomedusse over the northern in number 

 of species. The Australian Scyphomedusse fauna is apparently 

 poor, but this is due only to the insufficient investigations which 

 have hitherto been carried on on this subject. Suffice it to state, 

 that of the five Scyphomedusse abundant on our shores only one 

 had been described before I studied them. 



I hope, therefore, that we shall be able to add very extensively 

 to the Australian Scyphomedusas by our researches, 



(1.) Haeckel System der Medusen, Seite 367. 



