80 CLASSIFICATION OF MEDUSA. 
into simple, tentaculate, sub-proboscidean, proboscidean, and branched. In the last section 
are assembled the covered-eyed species. The juxtaposition of Aquorea and Obelia in the 
second section, of Thaumantias and Conis in the third, and of Hippocrene and Dianea 
in the fourth, are instances of the unnatural way in which the genera are distributed in this 
otherwise ingenious system. 
Brandt, who appears to have founded his studies among Meduse chiefly upon the 
drawings and notes of Mertens, divided the Discophore into Monostomous and Polystomous, 
subdividing the former into Oceanide, in which we find Circe and Conis placed together, 
Aquoride and Meduside, the latter including the covered-eyed species very naturally 
assembled, except the Rhizostomide, which, along with the Geryonide (in which tribe he 
includes Hippocrene), constitute the polystomous section; so that it is evident this eminent 
author did not clearly perceive the affinities of the several groups. 
Lesson, who, besides an extensive acquaintance with living forms, had the advantage of 
being last in the field, arranged the Discophore under four groups: Ist, “Les Méduses 
non-proboscidées,” in which we find several families, including genera, juxtaposed, having no 
immediate affinity; 2d, “Les Océanides ou Méduses vrais,” including Aiquorea and its allies, 
with a heterogeneous assemblage of forms in the genus Oceania ; 3d, “ Méduses agaricines 
ou proboscidées’’—here are Sarsia, Dianea, Geryonia, Tima, Thaumantias, &c., the group 
being in the main equal to my Geryonide, though some genera, as Saphenia, are brought 
into it far away from their fellows; and 4th, ““M/éduses a pédoncule central ou Rhizostomées,” 
consisting entirely of the covered-eyed species, much more naturally assembled together than 
in any of the preceding classifications,-except those of Peron and Eschscholtz, a personal 
familiarity with the objects he describes, having led Lesson, as it did them, to similar arrange- 
ments of the more conspicuous tribes. 
All the authors I have just cited, regard the Discophore, or Pulmograda, as a separate 
division of the Acalephe, or Arachnodermata, the whole class bemg distinct from the 
Zoophyta. Recent discoveries, however, would go far to show that such a separation is 
unnatural, and that the hydroid Zoophytes, at least, are very closely allied, if not belonging, 
to the same natural order with the Pulmograde Medusze. 
On the side of the Zoophyta, the facts bearing on this question have been chiefly derived 
from the families Corynide, Tubulariade, and the genus Campanularia. More than a 
century ago, when the nature of Zoophytes, whether animal or vegetable, was under dis- 
cussion, Bernard de Jussieu, who pronounced rightly for their animal origin, described 
certain little round, red, pedunculated bodies, encircling the head of the Tubularia. Nearly 
half a century after, Otto Frederic Muller observed similar bodies around the head of the 
Coryne, and maintained that they were eggs, and for an equal period this view of their nature 
was generally received. In the year 1833, Professor Rudolph Wagner gave an account* of 
the production of medusiform bodies in a Zoophyte of the Adriatic, the Coryne aculeata, 
which bodies he regarded as the young of the animal, although they themselves contained 
* In Oken’s Isis, for 1833. 
