MELICERTUM CAMPANULA. 



131 



observed on the coast of New England. Undoubtedly a few others of 

 the Jelly-fishes he has enumerated will prove identical with species 

 since described, on the coast of England and on our own shores. A 

 Medusa of this same genus was figured and described by Forbes tmder 

 the name of Stomohrachium octocostatum ; from the figure of Forbes 

 it is evidently not a Stomohrachium, and is probably this same Medusa 

 which he fomid in the North of Scotland. Fig. 202 is a profile view, 

 natural size, of the Melicertum, one of the most common of our naked- 

 eyed MedusEe. In the fall, at the time of spawning, it literally swarms 

 at the surface, and on sunny days seems particularly to delight to 

 come to the surface, where it remains in the afternoon untU dark, 

 being one of the few Medusae Fig. 203. 



(Zygodactyla groenlandica has 

 the same habit) which are to 

 be met with in the after- 

 noon. The genus Mehcertum 

 is closely related to the J5quo- 

 ridae, by the number of its 

 radiating tubes (of which there 

 are eight), and to Staurophora, 

 by the blending of the genital 

 organs with the actmostome, 

 and the total absence of mar- 

 gmal bodies, such as capsules, 

 cirri, and so forth. If the 

 small Medusa here figured 

 (Figs. 203, 204) are in reahty 

 the young of Mehcertmn, — 

 Melicertum being the only 

 Medusa allied to Staurophora 



which has no eye-specks, — the close affinity between them is still 

 more strongly marked in the young of these two genera, which can 

 only be distinguished from one another by the j)resence or absence 

 of eye-specks. 



From an exammation of the Medusa of Lafcea calcarata, 1 had 

 already come to the conclusion that the young Medusa was nearly 

 related to Staurophora and Melicertum. Having succeeded in finding 

 another Medusa evidently closely allied to it, I was not surprised in 

 recognizing a Melicertum of younger stage than any which I had 

 observed before. With the stage represented in Fig. 205, which has 

 been traced until there could be no doubt as to the genus to which 

 the young Medusa belonged, I was sufficiently familiar, from its frequent 

 occm'rence in the latter part of the spring, to recognize at once m 



Fig. 202. Profile of jMolicertuni campanula, natural size. 



