BIGELOW: THE CTENOPHORES 385 



mens all the paddle-plates were lost, without the animals being injured 

 in any other way. But this was, of course, accidental, as shown by a 

 specimen in which one of the ribs had lost them all, while the others 

 were normal. 



The funnel-canal is narrow, but in contracted specimens is abnor- 

 mally broad, and often folded or twisted (Plate 1, fig. 2) ; and this 

 is obviously the explanation for its shortness and enlarged calibre 

 in amboinae (Moser :08b, pi. 1, fig. 4). 



Color. In life the tentacles and their bases were chrome-yellow; 

 otherwise the animals were colorless. 



BEROIDA. 



BEROIDAE Eschscholtz. 



Beroe Browne. 



Moser (:08a), in her account of the Japanese Ctenophores, recog- 

 nizes five species of Beroe, enlarging the list admitted by Chun ('80, 

 '98), i. e. ovata, forskalii, and cucumis, by the rehabilitation of clarkii 

 L. Agassiz, and by a new recently discovered species, hyalina Moser; 

 and she has since ( : 09) described a sixth, compacta, from the collec- 

 tion of the German Antarctic expedition. Only three of these, ovata 

 and forskalii from Naples, and cucumis from various localities on the 

 east coast of North America, including Labrador and Florida, have 

 come under my observation; they are so easily distinguished by 

 structural characters that they are not likely to be confused. 



The Beroes fall into two main divisions, according as the pharyngeal 

 canals are simple or branched; and, as Moser points out (:08a), this 

 character is a very convenient one, because the condition of the canals 

 can usually be determined even in fragmentary specimens. The first 

 group, with simple canals, has two members, cucumis and hyalina. 

 The latter is distinguished, according to Moser, by its short ribs, and 

 by the fact that the sensory body is sunken, just as it is in the cydip- 

 pids, and by the unusual transparency. But the small size of the 

 recorded specimens of hyalina, 11-15 mm. naturally raises the ques- 

 tion whether these characters would be found in the adult, for, as is 

 well known, the ribs in all Beroes are at first very short, and ovata 

 and forskalii have simple gastric canals in early stages. It is true 

 that Moser found genital products, but in forskalii at any rate these 



