76 PELAGTA. 
opening at its inner side entering the cavities of the body in which we find the ovaries. These 
are four in number, shaped like horse-shoes or half-moons, of a bright purple colour. They 
are the four purple crescent-like marks which shine through the disk of the jelly fish as we 
see them swimming in the water. In some monstrous varieties they become united, and form 
a circle round the disk, or are multiplied, or, more rarely, aborted. The disk often measures 
nearly a foot across. It is very minutely granulated; when more coarsely so than usual, we 
have the variety which has been called 4. granulata. The specific names rosea, Surirea, 
lineolata, radiolata, purpurata, are all so many synonyms of the Aurelia aurita; and, 
judging from the description, the Biblis Aquitania of Lesson was, in all probability, nothing 
more than this common Medusa cast high and dry on the sands! It is everywhere abundant 
around our coasts, and sometimes occurs in vast numbers, impeding the course of boats 
through the water. Figures of it may be found in the Zoologia Danica, in the Berlin Trans- 
actions for 1837, and in the commemorative edition of the Regne Animal. 
2. A second species of Aurelia, for which I propose to retain the name Campanula, 
occurs abundantly in Southampton water, and some other confined localities. It appears 
to be the Medusa campanula of Otho Fabricius, and is a much more delicate animal than the 
Aurelia aurita, differing from it also in size, proportions, and ocelli. The umbrella is much 
more shallow, and never attains one fourth of the dimensions. The margin and arms are 
fringed with white tentacles, so that when the animal is seen in the water it appears as if 
conspicuously marked by a white cross. The ovaries are of a pale or tawny purple. The 
egg-shaped bodies of the ocelli are white, with a red spot above. This is probably the Medusa 
cruciata of some authors. There is no figure of it published. 
Genus PELaciA, Peron and Lesueur. 
3. Until the autumn of 1826, no example of Pe/agia had occurred in the British 
seas; in August of that year, several specimens of the Pelagia cyanella, one of the most 
beautiful and phosphorescent Medusze of the Atlantic, were taken by Mr. M‘Andrew and 
myself, off the coast of Cornwall. The disk is sub-globose, and measures nearly three inches 
across. It is tinged with a rich rose colour, and is speckled over, especially at the sides, by 
small orange warts. Its margin is scalloped into sixteen lobes, from beneath eight of which 
spring as many highly contractile, purple, tubular tentacula, and in the notches of the other 
six, are eight red, protected, pedunculated ocelli. From the centre of the sub-umbrella hangs 
a thick peduncle, which soon divides into four lanceolate, winged and furbelowed, rose- 
coloured, orange-spotted arms, nearly four inches in length. Around the bases of the arms 
are the openings above the four purple ovaries. A full description and figure of this beautiful 
species, will be found in the Annals of Natural History, vol. xix, p. 390, pl. 9, fig. 5. 
When the Pelagia phosphoresces, it seems like a great globe of fire in the water, an 
appearance familiar to those who have sailed on the coast of Italy, where animals of this 
genus are common. 
