274 
but the tentacle is tinged with violet. Opposite the intermediate 
canal there is a smaller bulb with a tentacle, hollow and containing 
corpuscles in its centre, and on each side, between it and the neigh- 
bouring tentacle, is a still smaller lobe-like body. Along the upper 
margin of the circular canal are very minute pedunculated organs 
that move to and fro. On the bulb at the base of the tentacula is a 
minute tongue-shaped process at the base of a depression ; at its own 
base the ocellus or rudimentary eye is lodged. When seen laterally, 
the peculiar tissue of the base of the tentacles is observed to be set 
obliquely. Within the umbrella, from a line just opposite the ten- 
tacular circle, a short but rather broad veil with a simple edge is seen 
to depend; this veil is tinged with pale brown. A band of motor 
tissue, forming a sphincter to the umbrella, accompanies the circular 
vessel. 
According to the size of the example, the number of genital glands 
and of tentacula varied: they increase with age. The smallest num- 
ber of tentacula seen was sixteen, and there is reason to believe that 
they are never fewer. 
To ascertain whether this beautiful animal be the Medusa equo- 
rea of Linnzus and the naturalists who wrote during his time, it is 
necessary to inquire into the history of that species. The name just 
mentioned occurs first in the ‘Iter Hispanicum’ of Peter Loefling, 
published in 1758. In his journal of observations on the 18th of 
April, at Cumana, he notices, along with Medusa (i. e. Aurelia) 
aurita, Medusa pelagica (Pelagia eyanella’?), and Velella, another 
Medusa, which he styles Zquorea, and describes as “ orbicularis, 
planiuscula, tentaculis plurimis ex margine inflexo, branchiis nullis.” 
This notice, which occurs at page 105 of the Swedish edition of his 
‘ Travels,’ is the entire original foundation for numerous references in 
after-authors. Linnzeus, in the first instance, adopted Loefling’s name 
and brief record, which, when read with our present knowledge of 
Acalephe, barely indicates the genus to which the animal observed 
probably belonged. In 1775, the descriptions and figures of animals 
observed during his journey to the East by the lamented Forskal were 
published under the superintendence of Carsten Niebuhr. Among 
them was a representation and description of a Medusa, referred to 
the equorea of Linnzeus, both excellent, as indeed may be said of all 
that Forskal did. In 1776 a Medusa equorea was noticed, scarcely 
more than by name, in the ‘ Zoologize Danicee Prodromus’ of Otho 
Frederic Miller. In 1780, Otho Fabricius, in his excellent ‘ Fauna 
Groenlandica,’ gives a shorter account than usual with him of a Me- 
dusa, which he refers to the equorea of Linneeus. He speaks of it 
as a very simple animal, smaller and softer than Medusa aurita, con- 
vex above, concave beneath, with very much inflected margins and 
white marginal cilia. The two last-mentioned characters are opposed 
to the notion of Medusa equorea, as represented and described by 
Forskal, and the first of them to the slight idea of its shape that we 
gather from Loefling. In 1791 Adolph Modeer commenced the work 
of hair-splitting by separating the animal of Forskal, under the name 
of Medusa patina, from that of Loefling, for which he reserved the 
