374 w - K. BROOKS ON THE LIFE-HISTORY 



figures of Fewkes' paper, as he says there are only four otocysts, while his figure shows 

 four on one-hall' of the umbrella, but neither the text nor the figures correctly represent 

 L. scutigera, McCrady. 



Special Description. McCrady's description of this species is so very vivid and minute, 

 that, although lie gives no figures, there is not the least difficulty in identifying the species, 

 thousands of specimens of which maybe procured at any point between Charleston and the 

 Chesapeake Bay. His account of the habits of the animal is so graphic that I quote it: 

 " This species is evidently gregarious, great numbers being found together in nearly every 

 instance when I have found it at all. It is bold and rapid in its movements and very 

 rapacious. I have seen one of this species, so extremely diaphanous as to make the im- 

 pression of nothing but a set of outlines, seize upon a small fish fully thrice as large as 

 itself, and securing itself by spreading out its lips upon it, making them act as suckers, 

 and then entangling about the poor animal its four long tentacuhe, hang on in this man- 

 ner despite the violent struggles of the fish which, alarmed, swam violently about the 

 jar, until at last apparently from sheer exhaustion, it was evident he was dying. At 

 last changing color, the fish turned over on his side and expired." McCrady speaks of 

 the great size and circular form of the reproductive organs, but their shape may be more 

 exactly described as square with rounded corners. He gives the following very accu- 

 rate account of their general appearance. "They are four in number, and are so large 

 that they very nearly touch each other laterally, and stretch very nearly from top to bot- 

 tom of the disk-cavity, thus occupying almost the whole inner surface of the bell. "When 

 viewed from above their unyielding structure gives the disk a quadrate outline, 

 and viewed in profile they appear as large, circular shields especially when at the death 

 of the animal they assume a marked white coloration." The quadrate outline, however, is 

 only apparent, except when the violent contraction of a freshly caught or a dying speci- 

 men causes the substance of the umbrella to conform to the shape of the distended ovaries. 

 McCrady's account of the sense organs is somewhat misleading, owing to the fact that 

 it is founded, in part, upon an examination of immature specimens. He says "the concre- 

 tionary capsules are of two sorts, a small round vesicle containing a concretionary corpuscle 

 at each of the shorter and complex tentacula, and at each of the longer and simple ten- 

 tacula, a double capsule consisting of two cysts, one above the other, and connected by an 

 intermediate (tubular?) thread, apparently a continuation of the membrane of the cysts." 

 This second cyst, with its connecting thread, is really the degenerated primary radial ten- 

 tacle of the young medusa. It must not he confused with the interradial club-shaped 

 structure described and figured by Fewkes (PI. vi, figs. 7 and 11.) 



The Embryology and Metamorphosis of Liriope scutigera, McCrady, and the 



Life-History of the Geryonid^e. 



Since the publication, in 1856, of Leuckart's observation on the metamorphosis of Gery- 

 onia exigua (17) naturalists have been aware that the young Geryonid is quite differ- 



