SKMAEOSTOMEiE — AUHKLLIA. 



629 



8 plain-edged, velum-like folds spanning between the sense-organs. The tentacles ami mar- 

 ginal lappets have migrated a considerable distance up the sides of the exumbrella, above the 

 velar margin. A longitudinal strand of muscle-fibers extends dovk'n the subumbrella side of 

 each tentacle and interrupts the rings of nematocysts which trend across its exumbrella 

 side. When the medusa is old the mouth-arms become much thickened and folded as in 

 Aurellid aurita. 



The dimensions of three specimens obtained by the U. S. Fisheries Bureau steamer 

 Albatross at Masbate Anchorage, Philippine Islands, on April 21, 1908, are as follows: 



Atircllia labinta is distmguished from A. aurita by having 16 notches in its bell-margin, 

 by its peculiar velum-like, inter-rhopolar, subumbrella membranes representing the true bell- 

 margin, and by the very small size of its subgenital ostia. The mouth-arms are also shorter 

 than one commonly observes them to be in A. aunta. 



Aurellia maldivensis H. B. Bigelow. 



Aureliti maldizetni^j Bigelow, H. B., 1904, Bull. Mus. Comp.Zool. at Harvard College, vol. 39, p. 261, plates 6, S, figs. 22, 23,27. 



Bell 250 mm. wide and about one-third as high. 8 marginal sense-organs, flanked by 

 small, pointed, ocular lappets. 8 wide interocular or velar lobes are each divided into 2 by 



Fig. 399. — Aurellia maldivensis^ after H. B. Bigelow, in Bull. Mus. Comp. Zoo!, at 

 Harvard College. 



a very slight, central depression, thus forming 16 lobes as in A. lahiata. About 500 small 

 tentacles alternate with an equal number of small, dorsal lappets as in Aurellia aurita. The 

 4 mouth-arms, or palps, are large and curtain-like, recalling those of Cyanea; their lips are 

 complexly folded and bear numerous, short tentacles. About 48 radial-canals arise from 

 the central stomach, the 8 canals to the marginal sense-organs and the 8 adradial ones do 

 not branch, but all of the others branch, and occasionally anastomose, so that about 175 

 canals reach the circular vessel at the margin. The 8 canals to the sense-organs each give 

 off 2 side-branches in the immediate neighborhood of the sense-organ. These side branches 

 extend to the circular vessel. The 4 gonads are small and horseshoe-shaped and have 

 wide subgenital pits. 



The bell is of a delicate lilac, the canals and tentacles pinkish-violet, and the mature 

 gonads bright violet. The color is, however, variable, some specimens being blue. 



Abundant in the lagoons of the atolls of the Maldives, Indian Ocean, in January. 



