FRESH- WATER JELLY-FISHES 63 



source. A thousand miles up the Yang-tse-Kiang River, 

 in China, in the province of Hupi, the Japanese captain of 

 a river steamer, plying there and belonging to a Japanese 

 company, captured ten jelly-fish in the muddy waters of 

 the river. He brought them home, preserved, I suppose, 

 in alcohol or formalin, and they have been described by 

 Dr. Oka, a Japanese zoologist of Tokio, in a publication 

 bearing the Latin title Annotationes Zoologicce niponenses^ 

 issued in December 1907. European sea captains have 

 not rarely been ardent naturalists, but I think the Japanese 

 is the first captain of a river steamboat who has discovered 

 a new animal on his beat. I have not heard of Mississippi 

 steamboat captains amusing themselves in this way other 

 rivers, other tastes. 



Dr. Oka describes the jelly-fish thus brought to him as 

 a Limnocodium^ differing in a few details from that of 

 Regent's Park, so that he distinguishes this Chinese 

 species as Limnocodium Kawaii, naming it after the 

 naturalist captain, who must have a rare taste for picking 

 up strange and new things, and a rare goodwill in bring- 

 ing them home with him. So here is another fresh-water 

 jelly-fish, for it is not the same as the Regent's Park one, 

 though closely like it. Possibly Limnocodium is an Asiatic 

 genus, and the original Sowerby's Limnocodium will be 

 found in another Chinese river. But it may prove to be 

 South American, as is the water-lily Victoria regia. 



A very small fresh-water jelly-fish was found some 

 twelve years ago in 1897 in the Delaware River at 

 Philadelphia, United States, and was lately described by 

 the well-known naturalist, Mr. Potts. It was budded off 

 from a very minute polyp resembling that found in the 

 Regent's Park, but the jelly-fish was totally different from 

 Limnocodium. Only four or five specimens of this 

 jelly-fish have ever been seen, and the Philadelphian 

 naturalists ought certainly to look it up again. 



