AMERICAN HYDROIDS. 



SEOTIOlSr III.-THE OAlVEPANULAliir)^: AND 

 BONNEVIELLID^E. 



MORPHOLOGY OF THE CAMPANTJLARID^E. 



- This family seems to be more unspecialized, on the whole, than cither of the other families, 

 Plumularidse and Sertularidse, thus far treated in this work, having neither the highly special- 

 ized phylactogonia and other gonosomal structures of the former nor, in many cases, the fixed 

 sporosacs of the latter. If these sporosacs are really degraded medusae, as claimed by Weis- 

 mann,' they are more specialized than the medusae that characterize many of the Campanu- 

 laridse and are hence evidence of the higher zoological rank of the Sertularidse. 



The members of the family Campanularidse have engaged the attention and elicited 

 the admiration of lovers of nature ever since the microscope revealed the elegant hydro thecae, 

 like fairy goblets, that characterize the group. John Ellis, in his "Essay towards a Natural 

 History of Coralhnes" (1745), describes several species and his drawings show their char- 

 acteristic features with rare fideUty. 



If we imagine minute crystalline chalices, crenated or plain round the margin and mounted on slender pedicels, 

 twisted spirally or delicately ringed, which are all united and bound to the body on which they grow by the finest 

 network of tubes, we have the form which the polypary assumes in one section of this exquisite group. In another 

 the species are arborescent and sometimes of considerable size, their tree-like tufts presenting the most lovely shapes, 

 the branches laden with the hyaline ealycles (variously formed and adorned) and with the vase-like capsules, and the 

 whole structure exhibiting an indescribable delicacy of texture and gracefidness of habit. ^ 



McCrady^ mentions but three colonial forms that belong to the family Campanularidae as 

 here used, but describes five medusae belonging to his ' 'group" Campanulariidae. One of these, 

 EpentJiesis foUeata, is probably the medusa of his hydroid Clytia noliformis. 



Mayer *' says that the hydroid of another, Eucheilota ventricular is, is a Campanularia. 

 The hydroid of the two species of Eutima is a Cam.panopsis, and Phortis gihhosa has a hydroid 

 form that can not be regarded as belonging to the Campanularidae as used in this work. 



Louis Agassiz ^ was the fu'st American naturalist to give extended description and illustra- 

 tion to the colonial forms of the Campanularidae. No more careful and accurate descriptions 

 have ever been made of these forms than are found in this work, where the following species 

 are described with the attention to detail so characteristic of the older Agassiz : Clytia poferium 

 { = Orthopyxis caliculata of the present work), Clytia hicophora, Clytia cylindrica, Laomedea 

 amphora ( = Campanularia amphora) , Ohelia commissuralis, and Eucope diaphana ( = Ohelia 

 geniculata). The figures illustrating these species in detail are by H. J. Clark and Sonrel, and 

 these figures have not, in the opinion of the writer, been surpassed in beauty and fidelity to 

 nature by any of the very numerous illustrations that have appeared during the half century 



' Die Entstehung der Sexualzellen bei den Hydromedusen, 1883, p. 185. 



2 Hincks, British Hydroid Zoophytes, 1868, p. 137. 



' Gymnopthalmata of Charleston Harbor, 1858, pp. 92-95. 



* Medusse of the World, vol. 2, 1910, p. 282. 



« Cent. Nat. Hist.U. S., vol. 4, 1862, pp. 297-325. pis. 28, 31, .and 33. 



