40 



most plentifully, and within a fev/ days from the time when 

 an e[rg is laid it has developed into a fixed polyp with 

 tentacles, and such polyps must be present in great mimbers 

 in the mud and on the stones at the bottom of the eel pond, 

 not even then have more than a very few specimens been 

 found, although search has been made by others than myself. 

 It is quite out of the question to suppose that the larvae 

 which develop into the great numbers of medusae which ap- 

 pear year after year in the eel pond have been swept out to 

 sea to undergo their transformations in deep water, because 

 in such case the adults v/ould appear in much wider range of 

 locality, in some of the bays and inlets of the coast where 

 the conditions seem to be almost the same as in the eel- 

 pond. The fact is that only a few stragglers are ever 

 found in the vicinity - as many as would readily be swept 

 out of the shallow water by the tide. Not only these con- 

 siderations, but all the other indications seem to point to 

 a direct transformation of the polyp to the adult gonosome 

 v^ithout leaving the eel- pond. The habit of the polyp of 

 resting with tentacles extended and adhering to the bottom, 

 the feeding reactions, the form of coelenteron, manubrium 

 and oral opening, and the manner of origin of the tenta- 



