120 THE MEDUSAE. 



Station 4676 ; 300 fathoms to surface. 



Station 4688 ; 300 fathoms to surface. 



Station 4707 ; surface. 



Station 4708 ; surface. 



Station 4714 ; surface. 



Station 4716 ; surface. 



Station 4721 ; 300 fathoms to surface. 



Station 4733 ; surface. 



Station 4734 ; 300 fathoms to surface. 



Station 4741 ; surface. 



The specimens vary considerably in outline, and in the proportion be- 

 tween breadth and height. In life most of them were about as high as broad, 

 as figured by Mayer (: 00 b ) ; but when preserved many of the specimens con- 

 tract so strongly as to take on a very tall, narrow outline (PI. 2, fig. 6). 

 The great majority are circular in cross section ; a few, however, show, more 

 or less distinctly, the octagonal outline thought by Maas to be characteristic 

 of A. prismaiica. Since, however, I have seen the same prismatic form in 

 a few specimens from the West Indies, it cannot be supposed to indicate 

 a geographic race. The largest specimen measures (preserved in formalin) 

 6 mm. high by 4 broad, dimensions approaching those of Atlantic speci- 

 mens, and considerably greater than those of any Pacific Aglaura previously 

 recorded. The greatest number of tentacles was about eighty-five, in the 

 specimen just mentioned, and since there is no reason to suppose that 

 this is the maximum, it is not unlikely that Pacific as well as Atlantic 

 specimens (Haeckel, '79, Vanhoffen : 02 b ) may occasionally have as many 

 as one hundred tentacles. The great majority of the specimens are from 3-4 

 mui. high and have from forty-five to fifty-five tentacles. Specimens about 

 L.5 mm. high have only about thirty. 



Gonads. — In a specimen 1.5 mm. high the gonads are already visible as 

 minute spherical swellings at the point of junction of peduncle with manu- 

 brium; a condition corresponding, as noted above, to that of an Atlantic 

 specimen of about the same dimensions. In a specimen 2 mm. high by 

 about 2 mm. broad they have already attained the " sausage " shape 

 characteristic of later stage-. 



In the smaller specimens the peduncle is very short, but in the larger 

 ones i- almost ms long as half the bell height. I observed no specimens 

 wiih the extremely long peduncle which I have recorded for two individuals 



