Meduse of the Philippines and of Torres Straits. 161 
Only one Scyphomedusa (Catostylus mosaicus) and one hydro- 
medusa (Hutima australis, nov. sp.) are possibly peculiar to Australia; 
all the others are of wide distribution. Of the six Scyphomeduse 
which we collected, two are widely distributed over the Pacific and 
three others are known both from the tropical Atlantic and the Pacific. 
Similarly, of the ten hydromeduse, three are widely ranging Pacific 
species and six others are found in both the Atlantic and Pacific. It 
appears that along the east coast of Queensland and the southeast 
coast of Papua is one of the poorest regions in the tropical world for 
meduse, containing almost nothing peculiar to itself; whereas the region 
of the Philippines and northern shores of New Guinea is one of the 
richest. This appears to be another illustration of the influence of a 
great ocean current, the rich region of the Philippines being in the 
sweep of the Japan Stream, whereas there is no well-defined current 
along the southern shore of Papua or off the Barrier Reef of Queensland. 
As is well known, H. B. Bigelow, in his report upon the siphonophorze 
of the Albatross, shows how abundant these forms are in the Humboldt 
current off the west coast of South America and how poor the region is 
in the mid-Pacific to the westward of this great current. Our studies 
made while assistant upon Dr. Alexander Agassiz’s expeditions to the 
tropical Pacific, as well as upon the recent expedition to Torres Straits 
and Papua, show that the whole great belt of the South Tropical Pacific, 
from the western edge of the Humboldt current to the shores of 
Australia, is poor in pelagic life. A number of local meduse appear 
in some of the large island groups, as in Fiji, but the region as a whole 
is poor in forms peculiar to itself and even those of wide distribution 
are, generally speaking, found only occasionally over this great desert 
of ocean. 
While in Australia we saw no swarms of Scyphomeduse other than 
a great number of specimens of the cobalt-blue form of Catostylus 
mosaicus L. Agassiz, in the estuary of the Brisbane River, Queensland, 
in September. These medusze appeared to be of all sizes, and as we 
saw them also in April and May 1896 in the same locality they may 
possibly breed throughout the year. 
A single specimen of a variety of Cassiopea andromeda was found 
at Badu Island in Torres Straits, and Mastigias papua was common in 
the harbor of Port Moresby, Papua, in November. 
Aurellia labiata was occasionally seen in Torres Straits, and this 
scyphomedusa is known only from the Pacific; but on July 27, 1913, 
a perfect adult specimen, intermediate in character between A. aurita 
and A. labiata, was found at Tortugas, Florida. A detailed description 
of this individual will be found in the text of this article. In this con- 
nection it will be recalled that Vanh6ffen finds that the Pacific form of 
Linuche, called L. aquila, appears also as a variety of the Linuche ungui- 
culata of the tropical Atlantic, and it seems possible that in Awrellia 
