CIRCEAD. 
Genus VII. Circe, Mertens (1838). 
Umbrella coinco-campanulate ; ovaries eight, placed on the sub-umbrella at a 
little distance around its summit; vessels eight, simple, passing through the ovaries, 
and opening into a marginal vessel; tentacula very numerous, and placed in a 
single series around the margin; peduncle cylindrical, contracting near its extremity 
to form the small campanulate stomach, the orifice of which is furnished with four 
lanceolate lips. 
Circe rosea, Forbes (1846). 
Plate I, Fig. 2. 
The genus Circe was constituted by Mertens for a remarkable little Medusa found by 
him on the coast of Kamtschatka. Brandt adopted this group in his ‘ Prodromus,’ and 
afterwards more fully in the ‘Petersburgh Transactions,’ where he described the species 
discovered by Mertens under the name of Circe camtschatica, and engraved it from the 
drawings of its discoverer. Lesson, in his ‘ History of the Acalephe,’ added two more 
species to the genus under the names of C. elongata, and C. anais, both discovered by Rang 
in the African (west ?) seas, and figured from his drawings. 
The Medusa which I now figure and describe under the name of Circe rosea, is the 
first of the genus noticed in the European seas. Though very small,—the largest specimens 
taken not being more than half an inch in height,—its aspect is very beautiful and striking. 
The umbrella is oblong, and somewhat mitre-shaped, with an apiculate summit. The outer 
surface is quite smooth. Round the margin is a close and single series of small tentacula, 
which, however, seem capable of considerable elongation, though usually retracted. Their 
number varies slightly. They are all similar, and in the examples taken, were 56 in number. 
Their formula might stand as 6X8-+8. They are all external to a veil, which guards the 
orifice of the sub-umbrella, and is marked by sixteen denticulations. I could detect no ocelli at 
the bases of the tentacula. From the centre of the sub-umbrella depends a long cylindrical 
peduncle, which reaches nearly to a line with the margin, and is contracted a little above the 
orifice, so as to form a kind of proboscis terminated by four simple lanceolate lips. The 
stomach is very short, and terminates almost at the upper point of contraction, where we see 
eight gastro-vascular canals commence, run up the side of the peduncle, distinct from each 
other, turn at its base, and descend the sub-umbrella, till they reach and unite with the marginal 
vessel. In the uppermost part of their course along the sub-umbrella, they pass through as 
many small ovate, simple generative glands, which, when the animal is seen from above, 
