ABYLINAE. 213 



The only previous records for F. spinosa are from off the coast of Brazil 

 (Keferstein and Ehlers), from the South Atlantic 37° 3' S., 44° 17' W. (Haeckel), 

 and probably from the Bay of Biscay (Bigelow, 'lib, p. 351). The present cap- 

 tures, from widely separated localities in the Eastern Pacific suggest that, 

 like so many other Siphonophores, it is distributed generally over the warmer 

 regions of all three great oceans. V. pentacantha is known from the Mediter- 

 ranean and from the Atlantic (Bay of Biscay, Bigelow, :11b, p. 351; Equatorial 

 current, Chun, '97b, p. 35). The genus is also credited by Delage and Herouard 

 (:01, p. 272) to the Pacific. 



Diphyidae Eschscholtz, 1829.' 

 Abylinae L. Agas.siz, 1862. 



As Chun ('97b) has pointed out, it is much more difficult to separate the 

 Abylinae into several natural genera than the other Diphyidae. Since the 

 appendages of all species of the subfamily are set free as Eudoxids, and since 

 none have special nectophores in the Cormidia, the genera or subgenera as yet 

 proposed rests on such characters as the structure of the bracts, and the 

 external sculpture of the nectophores. 



Haeckel ('88b) recognized three genera of Abylinae: — Abyla, Bassia, and 

 Calpe, basing the distinction on the form of the bracts and of the posterior 

 nectophore. Chun ('97b) has adopted the same classification, with the excep- 

 tion that he reduces the divisions to the rank of subgenera, and substitutes 

 Abylopsis for Calpe, because the latter is preoccupied for a genus of Lepi- 

 doptera. A rather different scheme is used by Lens and Van Riemsdijk (:08), 

 who list two genera, Abyla and Abylopsis, though without defining them, 

 (leaving out of account, for the moment, their new genus Diphyabyla) ; while 

 Schneider ('98) recognizes only one genus, Abyla. The present collection, 

 embracing as it does all the well-founded species of the subfamily, including 

 both nectophores of the little known leuckartii, together with the various 

 Eudoxids, gives an opportunity to test the importance of the characters on 

 which the schemes of Haeckel and of Chun rest. 



When we analyze the structure of the posterior nectophore, we find that 

 its form is best expressed, not as trigonal, tetragonal, or pentagonal as Haeckel 

 characterized it, but in terms of the number of ridges, which are the basis for 

 its external outlines. In three species, i. e. telragona, eschschoUzii ("quincunx" 

 Chun), and leuckartii, there is a dorsal, and on either side a well-developed 



