68 THE OCEANIC HYDROZOA. 



normally provided with nectocalyces, he makes a new genus {Epibulia) of it, with the 

 definition, "Tentacula sacculis simplicibus obsita. Partes cartilaginese adhuc incognitse;" 

 and separates it from Peron's Rldzophysa, whose swimming organs he also imagines he 

 has seen. Lamarck had taken a more just view in uniting both Peron's and Forskal's species 

 under the common head of Tthizophysa, but, on the other hand, he had erred, as Eschscholz 

 points out, in including Forskal's P. rosacea in the same category. 



The genus Agahia is a new and most important addition to the list of PhjsopltoridcB. 

 Eschscholz includes under it, and I suspect rightly, the Stephanomia Ampldtrite of Chamisso 

 {Ciineolaria incisa of Eysenhardt), which is certainly not the species of that name figured by 

 Peron, and the Pontocardia cruciata of Lesson. 



To these genera of Thysopltoridcp, Eschscholz adds the Hippnjjodius and Biscolabe of 

 Quoy and Gaimard, and the long known Phi/salia of Lamarck, while Velella, Malaria, 

 and Porpita are united into a family by themselves, the VeleUida. 



Leaving out Epihulia, Eschscholz's family of Pliysophorida contains nine genera: 

 three, Phjsophora, Athorybia, and PUzophjsa, founded on Forskfd's three Pliyssophora; one, 

 Stephanomia, on Peron and Lesueur's St. AmpUtridis; another, Apolemia, on their St. uvaria; 

 two being Quoy and Gaimard's Hippopodius and Biscolabe ; one Lamarck's Physalia ; and one 

 altogether new, Agulma. Excluded from this group, and forming the distinct family of 

 the VeleUida are the Velella and Porpita of Lamarck, and a new genus, Bataria. Hipjiopodius 

 has since been shown to be one of the Calycoplmida, and Rataria is only the young of 

 Velella. Biscolabe is doubtful. The rest are all, I believe, good, sound genera. 



Although Eschscholz separated the VeleUida; as a distinct family from the Physophorida, 

 he very clearly apprehended the close relations of the two; he refers particularly (p. 166) to 

 the resemblance of the " shell " of Bataria and Velella to the air-vesicle of Physalia, and 

 it seems to have been only the fancied resemblance between Porpita and Funyia, which 

 led him to separate the two families. 



I find the two groups first united, though in an indirect sort of way, by Deshayes, 

 in the second edition of Lamarck (1840), tome iii, p. 94, and Index, p. 764. 



Neither Quoy and Gaimard, nor Lesson, nor De Blainville, in their various publications, 

 have, so far as I have been able to discern, added a single real genus to those established by 

 Eschscholz, while in many respects their works are far behind his; and those of Quoy 

 and Gaimard, and of Lesson, have introduced the most lamentable confusion, especially in 

 regard to the limits of the genus Stephanomia. 



The masterly investigations of Milne Edwards published in the 'Annales des Sciences 

 Naturelles' for 1841, inaugurated a new epoch in the study of these singular animals, 

 and they were well seconded by the author of the 'Fauna Litteralis Norvegise' (1846), which 

 contains a remarkable memoir on some Physojihorida and Calycophoridce taken on the shores 

 of the Island of Floroe, in the high northern latitude of 61|°. Sars considers (though at 

 p. 5.5 he seems to have some misgivings on the subject) that they all belonged to the same 

 species of a new genus, Ayalmopisis, which he thus defines : 



"Partes cartilaginese superiores seu natatorise ut in agalmate ; inferiores numerosse 

 solidae, triangulares, sparse, non tubum componentes, sed modo una earum extremitate 

 canaU reproductorio afSxse ceterumque liberEe, pro emissione tubulorum suctoriorum ac 

 tentaculorum ubicunque fissuras prsebentes. Canalis reproductorius longissimus, tubulos 



