62 MEDUSA. I. 



Cosmetira pilosella Hartlaub 1909, Ueber Thaumantias pilosella Forbes und die neue Lafoeiden-Gat- 

 tung Cosmetira. -- Zool. Anz. Bd. 34, p. 82. 



Umbrella much rounded, about 20 mm wide. Stomach small, with a cross-shaped base and 4 folded 

 lips. Gonads narrow, linear, somewhat sinuous, placed along the 4 radial canals, leaving both ends free. 

 About 64 short tentacles with globular basal bulbs; between each successive pair of tentacles there 

 are about 6 short, solid dwarf-tentacles; a number of similar organs are distributed over the outer 

 part of the exumbrella. There are 8 large, open, adradial marginal vesicles. Velum is bread. Stomach 

 and gonads are reddish-purple, tentacle-bulbs dark purple. 



Forbes's description and particularly his coloured drawings of this species are excellent. Among 

 others the following remark is appropriate: "... towards the margin ... it is as if woolly . . .". For- 

 bes, it is true, did not observe the marginal vesicles; these have first been described by Gosse (1853), 

 who also mentions the high illuminating power of the animal. Haeckel included Forbes's medusa 

 among his numerous synonyms of "Laodice cruciata", and this has caused a good deal of confusion. 

 Thus the "Laodice cruciata" of Garstang (1893 1895, pp. 215 and 233 ff.) and Browne (1895, p. 276) 

 is actually Cosmetira pilosella, as later demonstrated by Browne. On the other hand, the medusa 

 which in Crawford (1891) and Me Intosh (1890) is called "Laodice cruciata (Thaumantias pilosella 

 Forbes)" is a real Laodicea (see above, p. 28). In 1896 Browne (1896, p. 484. PI. XVI, figs. 7 and 7 a) 

 identified some medusae, examined by him, as Forbes' species, which he referred provisionally to the 

 genus Euchilota, and thereafter we find it in the literature under the name of Euchilota pilosella 

 until 1909, when Hartlaub (1909, pp. 82 89) gave a new definition of the genus C-jsmetira and a 

 new and thorough description of the type-species pilosella, based on some specimens from Bergen 

 previously identified by Broch (1905, p. 7) as Irene viridula. The name Ctsmelira pilosella has been 

 adopted by Mayer (1910, p. 261) and Browne (1910, p. 32). In Bedot's Histoire des Hydroi'des, on 

 the other hand, it is unfortunately mentioned as a synonym of "Laodice cruciata" 1 . 



I have no objections or additions to Hartlaub's thorough description. Hartlaub calls atten- 

 tion to the fact that the "cirri" are fairly short and rigid threads and are never spirally coiled; they 

 are, accordingly, no typical cirri and ought to be called dwarf-tentacles. 



Material (see Chart VII): 



Lat. 5948' N., Long. i23' W., close south of the Shetland Islands. July 22nd 1905. Depth 85 m. 

 "Thor" stat. 122 (05). 3 specimens. 



In the journal of the "Thor" from this station only one species of Leptomedusae is recorded, 

 and a roughly made sketch makes it probable that it means the present species. It was taken in the . 

 young-fish trawl with 25m wire in great quantities, with 65 m wire commonly, and with 125 m wire 

 in smaller numbers. It is possible that the specimens from the deepest haul have been captured during 

 the hauling up through the upper water-layers, where the species, according to the journal, was pre- 

 sent in great numbers. 



The area of distribution of this species is fairly narrowly limited. It has been found near Ber- 

 gen (Broch 1905, Hartlaub 1909), at the Shetland Islands (Forbes 1848), at the Isle of Man 

 (Browne 1895), Valencia Harbour (Browne 1895 and 1900, Delap 1905), Falmouth (Alder in For- 



1 Compare the note on p. 21. 



