216 DE. REID. 



adhere together, and thus two separate animals will 

 be produced, each gifted with the power of throwing 

 out stolens and buds with the same prodigality as if 

 they had never been disunited! 



How long this budding process of necessity con- 

 tinues we cannot tell. It may be only during the 

 winter season. These creatures in their perfect con- 

 dition are generally found crowding our seas during 

 the summer months ; most probably, therefore, as 

 Sars and Steenstrup state, it is at the commencement 

 of spring that they undergo the last portion of this 

 ' transformation strange/ 



Still, this cannot be taken as a general rule. Dr.- 

 Reid, who for a period of two years kept colonies of 

 Medusae, and assiduously watched the various stages 

 of their development, found that the larvao of one 

 colony, which was obtained in September 1845, did 

 not split transversely into young Medusae in the 

 spring of 1846, as he expected them to do, but con- 

 tinued to produce stolens and buds abundantly. 



On the other hand, the larvae of the other colonies, 

 which this gentleman obtained in July, began to 

 yield young Medusae about the middle of March. 

 This process takes place in the following manner : 

 A 'bud 3 having arrived at maturity, it becomes 

 ' cylindrical/ considerably elongated, and much dimi- 

 nished in diameter, its outer surface being marked 

 with a series of transverse wrinkles. 



These wrinkles, or rings, which frequently amount 



