VELELLA. 341 



gonozooids. Regarding the former, it is interesting to note that it is formed 

 much later in Porpita than in Velella. While in the latter it is present in the 

 Conaria larva even before metamorphosis into the Rataria, in the smallest 

 specimen of Porpita collected bj' the "Albatross" it is only just appearing as a 

 slight ridge on the margin of one side of the disc (fig. B). In the 4 mm. speci- 

 men it is well developed. In the smallest specimen only one of the eight gono- 

 zooids has a terminal opening, so far as I could determine; in the 4 mm. indi- 

 vidual, however, all have open mouths. The fact that they all bear young 

 medusa buds as well, even at this early stage, argues strongly against Haeckel's 

 view that the presence of buds in his "Discalia" and "Disconalia" was evidence 

 of maturity. 



Velellidae Brandt, 1835. 



Chun ('97b) has considered in such detail the reasons for reuniting Haeckel's 

 ('88a, '88b) Rataria and Armenista with Velella, that I need only state that 

 like Schneider ('98) and Lens and Van Riemsdijk (:08) I entirely agree with his 

 conclusion that they represent nothing more than early and mature stages in 

 the life history of the later. Velella thus remains the only representative of 

 the family. 



VELELLA Lamarck, 1801. 



Modern students of Siphonophores generally support Chun ('97b) in his 

 conclusion that the numerous species of Velellas which have been described from 

 the Atlantic and from the Mediterranean, are at most only local varieties of a 

 single species. For this form Chun employed the name V. spirans Forskal. 

 But according to the rules of nomenclature, Schneider was justified in substi- 

 tuting the older name V. velella of Linne, because the earliest appearance of 

 the species in binomial literature is Medusa velella Linn. 



No less than eleven species of Velella have been described from the Indo- 

 Pacific region, but it is certain that they are not all distinct. Chun ('97b, p. 96) 

 though with hesitation on account of the paucity of his material, suggests that 

 all of them, like all of the Atlantic forms, represent only one good species, which 

 he believes to be distinct from the Atlantic V. velella. This standpoint has been 

 adopted by Agassiz and Mayer ( : 02) and by Lens and Van Riemsdijk ( : 08), who 

 record their specimens from the Pacific and from the Malaysian region, as V. 

 pacifica Eschscholtz. But Schneider ('98, p. 194) has taken the more radical 



