^aUOREADiE. 



Genus V. Stomobrachium, Brandt (1838). 



Umbrella depressed or convex; ovaries 8-12, linear, radiating on the surface of 

 the sub-umbrella in the lines of the vessels. Margin with very numerous tentacula. 

 Peduncle short, with lobed and fimbriated lips. 



Stomobrachium octocostatum (sp,), Sars. 

 Plate IV, Fig. 1. 



Synonyms. Oceania octocostata. Sars, Besk. aj. Jagt., p. 24, pi. 4, f. 9 (1835). 



Melicertum campanulatum. Ehrenberg, Berlin Trans., 1835, pi. 8, f. 5-7. 

 ^quorea octocostata. Lesson, Acal., p. 312 (1843). 

 Thaumantias Milleri. Landsborough, Arran, p. 265 (1847). 



Of all our British naked-eyed Medusae, I know least about the family to which the 

 curious and elegant creature before us belongs. As yet we have only two members of it to 

 record — this and a beautiful jelly fish discovered by Mr. Alder. The latter I have never seen 

 myself; the former I have not met with since my first season's study of Medusse in 1839, 

 when, though I made careful drawings of it, I did not examine its minute structure, trusting 

 to meet with it again, as it seemed to be one of the most abundant of its tribe. Too often do 

 we thus put aside unexamined what seems common and always at hand ; too often do we 

 regret our inattention when the opportunity is gone ; and this with more serious subjects (some 

 could add with objects even more beautiful) than Medusae. 



The genus Stomohrachium was constituted by Brandt for the reception of a Medusa 

 presenting characters intermediate between Mesonema and ^quorea, and connecting the 

 family of which the latter is the type with the Oceanidce. The only species known to the 

 Russian naturalist had been discovered and delineated by Mertens in the South Atlantic 

 Ocean, near the Falkland Isles, in the month of January, 1827. 



In 1835, Sars described and figured a little Medusa of the Norwegian seas under the 

 name of Oceania octocostata, with the diagnosis, " Disco campanulato, ore plicato brachiis 

 nuUis ; intus canalibus 8 clavatis, cirris marginalibus longissimis." He accompanied it by a 

 fuller account in the Norwegian language. 



The same species had been excellently figured by Ehrenberg in 1835, under the name of 

 Melicertum campanulatum (which had been applied in 1829 by Eschscholtz to a very distinct 

 Medusa from the Pacific), apparently under the impression that the animal in question was the 

 Medusa campanula of Otho Fabricius {Campanella Fahricii of Lesson). 



