LIZZIA OCTOPUNCTATA. 65 



spring from each of the larger bulbs, and either two or three from the smaller, the number 

 varying in different specimens. These tentacles when contracted are rather short . in pro- 

 portion to the body, colourless, and not usually very extensile, though Sars has observed them 

 extended to a great length. The animal, when swimming, often turns them up and curls them. 

 The sub-umbrella occupies not quite two thirds of the body ; it is divided into four parts, by 

 the four vessels running to join the marginal canal opposite the larger tentacular bulbs. Its 

 upper part often appears as if truncated. The peduncle is short, thick, and four-lobed. It 

 is marked with four patches of black pigment-cells. Between the lobes are seen, in the 

 majority of specimens I have examined, four budding gemmules, one of which is invariably in 

 a stage of advancement far beyond the others, and usually exhibits distinctly the black 

 ocellated tentacular bulbs. The stomach occupies the lower part of the peduncle; it is 

 narrower than the upper, and more extensile. It is colourless, and terminates in four ten- 

 taculiform lips, each one bifurcating. 



In St. Magnus Bay I took specimens similar in every respect to those just described, 

 except in being a little larger, having slightly smaller ocelli, and no buds on the peduncle. 

 These may possibly have been males. I have never seen the process of gemmation in the 

 females advanced beyond the stage noticed above. Sars, however, traced all its stages, and 

 as his account is of great interest, and contained in a work probably accessible to very few of 

 my readers, I extract it entire : — 



" I considered the short cylindrical knots or appendages on the stomach (which hangs 

 free in the cavity of the campanulate disk) of the Acalephse, described by me under the name 

 of CytcBis octopunctata, as very remarkable even at the moment of the discovery of the species. 

 I could not at the time state their purport with certainty, but supposed that they had some 

 connexion with the mode of procreation. 



" In the spring, 1836, I had an opportunity of observing a number of individuals of this 

 species of Acalephse ; and I then discovered, to my astonishment, that the parts mentioned are 

 jiothing else than the young ones produced by gemmation, — a phenomenon hitherto unknown 

 among the class of the Acalephae. I have briefly mentioned this interesting discovery in 

 Wiegmann's Archives for 1837, Part V, p. 406. 



" I observed in some individuals, which I examined on the 5th of May, that these knots 

 are all placed in a horizontal position (viewing the animal erect or with the mouth downwards), 

 at the sides of the square-formed stomach. They are usually four in number, and are seated 

 opposite one another. There are likewise frequently seen an additional two or four much 

 smaller ones, placed beneath the former number. They are, moreover, usually of uneven 

 dimensions, the two seated opposite one another being larger than the other two, and one of 

 the larger pair is larger than the other. In one of these individuals a knot was developed 

 into a perfect young animal, with a bell-shaped, colourless, transparent disk, in the cavity of 

 which the oblong, pear-shaped, brownish-gray stomach was quite distinct. At the margin of 

 the disk there were eight brownish-black, marginal granules, and the marginal fibres that 

 spring forth from them, of which I counted sixteen, as long as the disk. The marginal fibres 

 moved and bent slowly, and the entire disk was contracted occasionally. The young one was 

 attached by means of a very short and rather thick peduncle (which issued forth from the 

 back or from the convex surface of the disk) to the stomach of the mother, whilst it otherwise 

 projected with its entire body independently. The young one seated opposite it had probably 



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