OCEANIA EPISCOPALIS. 27 
1. Oceania octona (sp.), Fleming. 
Plate II, Fig. 3. 
Synonym. Geryonia octona. Fleming, Edin. Phil. Journ., vol. viii, p. 299 (1822). 
British Animals, p. 501 (1828). 
Umbrella smooth, transparent, mitrate, somewhat constricted above the centre, and 
produced into a conical acuminated apex. Margin with eight elongated yellow tentacula, 
springing from thick bulbous bases. On each bulb is a minute red ocellus, and an otolitic 
cavity beneath, with an included vibrating mass. Between each pair of tentacles are three 
yellow minute tubercles springing from a narrow, yellow, marginal ring. On each tubercle is 
a minute red ocellus. The central one is largest. Down the sides of the sub-umbrella, which 
occupies about two thirds of the body, run four wide vessels to join a wide marginal vessel. 
The upper part of the sub-umbrella has often a lobed appearance. From its centre depends 
an ample, yellow, vasiform peduncle, including in its upper part four convoluted bright yellow 
ovaries. Its orifice is wide, and bordered by four fimbriated yellow lips. I have taken this 
species off the mouth of the Frith of Forth, where it has also been observed by my friend 
Mr. Henry Goodsir, and in the seas near the east coast of Zetland. 
It was first noticed and described by Dr. Fleming, who observed it in the sea of the east 
coast of Scotland in 1821. In his account of an excursion made that year, published under 
the title of Gleanings of Natural History, in the eighth volume of the ‘ Edinburgh Philo- 
sophical Journal,’ he describes it as follows: ‘ Having returned from the Bell rock to the 
vessel, I devoted some time to the examination of the molluscous cargo which I had brought 
on board. While observing the motions of some of the animals in a glass of sea-water, a 
Medusa presented itself belonging to the genus Geryonza of Peron and Lesueur. The body 
was diaphanous, round at the margin, sub-conical at the summit, and slightly acuminated. 
The central mouth was trumpet-shaped, and shortly pedunculated. The circumference of the 
body was furnished with eight similar tentacula, equal to its diameter. As it differs from 
Geryonia dinema and Geryonia proboscidalis, the only known species, I have named it 
G. octona.”’ (Loc. cit. p. 298.) 
2. Oceania episcopalis, Forbes. 
Plate II, Fig. 1.. 
The great fishing-banks which stretch along the coasts of the Zetland Isles, whether 
eastern or western, are among the most interesting of stations in the British seas for marine 
researches. The beautiful Medusa which I have now to describe was taken in the neighbour- 
hood of the western line of bank, forty miles from the mainland of Zetland, in the autumn of 
1845. When lying to there, as much in open ocean as if we had been in the very middle of the 
Atlantic,—the sea calm, though the heavy swell tossed our little vessel to and fro with a motion 
that would make land-loving naturalists wish themselves on shore, and vow never more to meddle 
with the wonders of the deep, but keep steadily at their studies among cockchafers and 
tom-tits,—we were delighted by the sight of shoals of swimming gelatinous animals, with 
brilhant purple nuclei, passing in succession near the surface of the water, and having all the 
