GENERAL CHARACTERS 



The jelly-fish is preserved with a mixture of iiluin aud salt or 

 between the steamed leaves of a kind of oak. To prepare the 

 preserved food for the table it is soaked in water, cut into small 

 pieces, and flavoured. It is also stated that these Medusae are 

 used by fishermen as bait for file-fish and sea-bream.-^ 



In general structure tlie Scyphozoa occupy an intermediate 

 position between the Hydrozoa and the Anthozoa. The very 

 striking resemblance of the body-form to the Medusa of the 

 Hydrozoa, and the discovery of a fixed hydriform stage in the 

 life-history of some species, led the older zoologists to the con- 

 clusion that tliey should be included in the class Hydrozoa. 

 Eecently the finer details of development have been invoked to 

 support tlie view tliat they are Antliozoa specially adapted for a 

 free-swimming existence, but the evidence for this does not 

 appear to us to be conclusive. 



They differ from the Hydrozoa and resemble tlie Antliozoa in 

 the character that the sexual cells are matured in the endoderm, 

 and escape to the exterior by way of the coelenteric cavity, 

 and not directly to the exterior by the rupture of the ectoderm 

 as in all Hydrozoa. They differ, on the other hand, from the 

 Anthozoa in the absence of a stomodaeum and of mesenteries. 



The view that the Scyphozoa are Anthozoa is based on the 

 belief that the manubrium of the former is lined by ectoderm, 

 and is homologous with the stomodaeum of the latter ; and that 

 the folds of mesogloea betw^een the gastric pouches are homologous 

 with the septa.- 



The Scyphozoa, notwithstanding their general resemblance to 

 the Medusae of Hydrozoa, can be readily distinguished from them 

 l)y several important characters. The absence of a velum in all 

 of them (except the Cubomedusae) is an important and con- 

 spicuous cliaracter which gave to the class the name of Acraspeda. 

 The velum of the Cubomedusae can, however, be distinguished 

 from that of the Craspedote Medusae (i.e. the Medusae of the 

 Hydrozoa) by the fact that it contains endodermal canals. 



Sense-organs are present in all Scyphozoa except some of the 

 Stauromedusae, and they are in the form of statorhabs (tentaculo- 

 cysts), bearing statoliths at the extremity, and in many species, 



' K. Kisliinouye. Zool. Jahrh. Sijst. xii. 1899, p. 206. 



- For the discussion of tliis relationship the reader is referred to Goette, Zcitschr. 

 tciss. Zool. Ixiii. 1897, p. 360, and Carlgren, Zool. Anz. xxii. 1899, p. 31. 



