180 MESSRS. L. MURBACH AND C. SHEARER ON [Juiie 16, 



Habitat. — Fnget Sound, collected by Kincaid ; Victoria 

 Harbour, collected by Shearer. 



Discussion. — The principal points in which this species ap- 

 proaches the Pacific form given by Agassiz and Mayer (3) are the 

 large size of the tentacle-bulbs, the distribution of the otocysts and 

 their contents. It differs from it in the shape of the simple oral 

 lobes, the tentacle-bulbs, and the position of the gonads. Several of 

 our specimens seemed to agree more closely with P. variahile than 

 with P. gregariitm, apparently the only difference being in the 

 number of tentacles. From Claus's paper (10) it would seem 

 that cirri are present in all the Phialidia, and that they are 

 usually on the sides of the tentacle-bulbs. 



Haeckel distinguishes three species of Phialicliimi — P. variahile, 

 P. languiduvi, and P. gregarium. Maas (26) departs from 

 Haeckel in retaining the species P. Jlavidulum, with its larger 

 numb'?r of otocysts and tentacles, Haeckel placing it under 

 P. variahile. Haeckel has arranged some twenty or twenty-five 

 names under P. variahile as synonyms ; the original descriptions 

 of many of these, as Brown has remarked, are far too vague for 

 their identification to-day. Brown (8) distinguishes as distinct 

 from Haeckel's species P. buskiaitttm, P. temporarium, and 

 P. cymbaloideum. The great variability in the members of this 

 group renders it especially difiicult to determine the value of the 

 various species until their hydroid forms are recognized. 



Agassiz (2), in speaking of Oceaoiia languida {P. languidum), 

 remarks on the extraordinary attitudes assumed by this Medusa. 

 One of these attitudes is given in fig. 102, where the animal is 

 rolled up upon itself, the opposite edges of the bell coming 

 together. Many of our examples exhibited this peculiar attitude, 

 while others were folded in a three-cornered manner, something 

 like the attitude in which Brandt (5) pictures his Staurophora 

 mertensii (pis. 24 & 25). 



The specimens from Prof. Kincaid's collection also exhibited 

 these attitudes. They were taken from a different part of Puget 

 Sound. 



TV. ^QUORiD^ Eschscholtz. 

 Mesonema Eschscholtz (Haeckel, 18, p. 225). 



1. Mesonema victoria, sp. nov. (Plate XIX. figs. 1, I a, & 2, 

 and Plate XXIl.fig. 2.) 



SpecifiG description. — The bell is hemispherical, 7 cm. broad 

 by 3-5 cm. high, tapering to a thin flexible margin. A well- 

 developed velum is present. Tentacles numerous, over 100, 

 shorter than the diameter of the bell. In the same row with 

 the tentacles are found numerous small papillje, sometimes 

 between the tentacles, sometimes below them. Otocysts and ex- 

 cretory papillaj are present. The gastric cone is not pedunculated, 

 but is lens-shaped and almost hemispherical. Stomach about the 



