176 BULLETIN 100, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



SEMAEOSTOMAE. RHINOSTOMATA— Continued. 



Pelagia panopyra Peron and Lesueur. Phyllorhiza luzoni Mayer. 



Chrysaora melanaster Brandt. Versura maasi Mayer. 



Dactylometra africana Vanhoffen. Lobonema smithii Mayer. 



Sanderia malayensis Goette. TJiysanostoma thysanura Haeckel. 



Discomedusa philippina Mayer. Lorifera lorifera, var. pacifica 



Aurellia aurita (Linnaeus). (Schultze). 

 Aurellia labiata Chamisso and Eysen- 

 hardt. 



Also in 1914 S. F. Light x describes 7 species from the Philippines 

 other than those obtained by the Albatross. Mr. Light's additional 

 species are : Dactylometra quinquecirrha ; Cassiopea polypoides ; Cas- 

 siopea medusa, new species; Acromitus maculosus, new species; 

 Lobonema mayeri, new species; Lobonemoides gracilis, new species; 

 and Rhopilema visayana, new species. 



Thus 38 Scyphomedusae are already known from the Philippines, 

 which is thus one of the richest regions of the world for Scypho- 

 medusae, and stands in marked contrast with the tropical Pacific 

 coast of Queensland, Australia, of which only 10 species have been 

 described. 



This appears to be another illustration of the influence of a great 

 ocean current, the rich region of the Philippines being in the sweep 

 of the Japan Stream, whereas there is no well-defined current along 

 the southern shore of Papua or off the Barrier Reef of Queensland. 

 As is well known, H. B. Bigelow, in his report upon the Siphono- 

 phorae of the Albatross, shows how abundant these forms are in the 

 Humboldt current off the coast of South America and how poor the 

 region is in the mid-Pacific to the westward of this great current. 

 My studies, made while assistant upon Dr. Alexander Agassiz's expe- 

 ditions to the tropical Pacific, in 1899, as well as upon the Carnegie 

 Institution of Washington expedition of 1913 to Torres Straits and 

 Papua, show that the whole great belt of the South Tropical Pacific, 

 from the western edge of the Humboldt current to the shores of 

 Australia, is poor in pelagic life. A number of local medusae appear 

 in some of the large island groups, as in Fiji, but the region as a 

 whole is poor in forms peculiar to itself, and even those of wide dis- 

 tribution are, generally speaking, found only occasionally over this 

 great desert of ocean. 



STRUCTURE, PHYSIOLOGY, HABITS, AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE 

 SCYPHOMEDUSAE. 



The Scyphomedusae are the large jellyfishes, commonly called the 

 sea blubbers, in which the body is umbrella shaped, the mouth parts 



1 Philippine Journal of Science, vol. 9, Section D, No. 3. 



