36 Mr. F. S. Conant on the Cubomedusas. 



unforlied. Pedalia flattened, sliaped like a slender knife-blade, 

 about half as long as the height of the bell. Tentacles at 

 greatest extension observed 2^ times the length of pedalia. 

 Sexes separate. Height of bell in largest specimens (repro- 

 ductive elements mature) 8 or 9 niillim. Breadth same as 

 height, or even greater. Colour a light yellowish brown, due 

 in large part to eggs or embryos in the stomach-pockets. 

 The reproductive organs especially prominent by reason of 

 their similar colour. Found in Kingston Harbour, Jamaica. 

 It will be seen from the above that Tripedalia possesses 

 two of the characteristics of the Charybdeidfe and two of the 

 Cliirodropidffi. The small size of T. cysto'pliora is worthy of 

 note in connexion witli the fact that of the twenty species of 

 CubomedusEe given by H«3ckel in his system only two are 

 smaller than 20 millim. in heiglit, and those are the two 

 representatives of Hseckel's genus Procharagma, the proto- 

 type form of the Cubomedusge, without pedalia and without 

 velarium. While Tripedalia has both pedalia and velarium, 

 it may be, perhaps, that its small size, taken in connexion 

 with characteristics just about midway between the Charyb- 

 deida? and the Chirodropidffi, indicate that it is not a recently 

 acquired form of the Cubomedusse. 



B. — Habitat. 



The Cubomedusaj are generally believed to be inhabitants 

 of deep water, which come to the surface only occasionally. 

 Both of the Jamaica species, however, were found at the 

 surface of shallow water near the shore, and only under these 

 circumstances. Whether these were their natural conditions, 

 or whether the two forms were driven by some chance from 

 the deep ocean into the harbour, and there found their sur- 

 roundings secondarily congenial, so to speak, can be a matter 

 of conjecture only. G. xaymacana was taken regularly a few 

 yards off-shore from a strip of sandy beach not ten minutes' 

 row from the laboratory at Port Henderson. It was seen 

 only in the morning before the sea-breeze came in to roughen 

 tlie water and to turn the region of its placid feeding-ground 

 into a dangerous lee-shore. Some of the specimens taken 

 contained in the stomach small fish so disproportionately 

 large in comparison with the stomach that they lay coiled up, 

 head overlapping tail. The name Charyhdea, then, meaning 

 a gulf, rapacious, seems to be no misnomer. It is worth 

 mentioning that the digestive juices left the nervous system 

 of the fish intact, so that from the stomach of a Charyhdea 

 could be obtained beautiful dissections, or, rather, macera- 

 tions, of the brain, cord, and lateral nerves of a small fish. 



