72 STEENSTRUPIA. 



The Euphysa mirata has a smooth, inflated, globose, transparent umbrella. The orifice 

 is rather contracted, and square. At each of the four angles is a large diamond-shaped 

 ocellus, the upper half of which is bright golden yellow, and the lower vivid scarlet or 

 crimson. From each of the ocelli springs a short, reflexed, cylindrical, yellow tentacle, which I 

 have never seen to extend itself. From one of the ocelli, below the short tentacle, arises a long 

 and thick one, highly extensile, and of a golden colour, usually presenting a club-like shape. The 

 smaller and larger tentacles are identical in structure. A marginal vessel and veil bounds the 

 opening of the umbrella. The peduncle is flask-shaped, the neck of the flask being the 

 stomach, and terminating in a contracted, simple, round opening, which I never saw protruded 

 beyond the disk, though often moved about in various directions ; the walls of the peduncle 

 are apparently banded with motor tissue. The orifice of the stomach is tinged with 

 red. The remainder is yellow, with four slightly-marked tawny bands on its lower part. 

 Within the centre, and at the base of the peduncle, is a pyramidal cluster of reproductive 

 cells, constituting the ovary. The size of the body scarcely exceeds one sixth of an inch. It 

 is an active and lively little animal. 



Plate XIII, fig. 3, a, represents it of the natural size ; 3, h, magnified ; 3, c, is one of 

 the smaller tentacles and ocellus ; 3, d, the same seen in front ; 3, f, the extremity of the 

 larger tentacle ; 3, e, the peduncle and ovaries as seen under compression. 



Genus XVIII, Steenstrupia, Forbes (1846). 



Umbrella conical, apiculate ; apex connected by a cord with the sub-umbrella ; 

 four marginal elongated glands opposite the four simple radiating vessels ; a single 

 tentacle developed from one of the glands only ; peduncle proboscidiform, with a 

 simple round orifice. 



Whatever may be thought of the other genera of Sarsiadets, there can be no question 

 that this is intimately related to zoophytes of the hydroid order, and is, in all probability, an 

 intermediate stage. Yet animals, so singular and significant as those which I have brought 

 under Steenstrupia, cannot be left unnamed until their larva or final conditions, as the case 

 may prove, be determined. Nor, I trust, will the illustrious naturalist of Denmark, in honour 

 of whose genius I have ventured to designate the group, disdain it, even though it prove to 

 be only provisional, since whatever may become its eventual rank, in all probability the 

 creatures it includes will yield valuable illustrations of the ingenious and important theory 

 which he first presented in definite shape. 



Indeed several of the figures which Steenstrup has given in the first plate of his ' Essay 

 on the Alternation of Generations,' representing the hydroid polype Coryne fritillaria, and 

 those in the first plate of Sars's ' Beskrivelser, &c.' delineating the gemmules of that 

 exquisitely beautiful zoophyte, the Corymorpha nutans, bear so close a resemblance to the 

 two forms of Medusa which I am about to describe, that I can scarcely doubt their close 

 affinity. It is not impossible that my Steenstrupia rubra may eventually prove to be the full- 

 grown medusoid of the Corymorpha,— a supposition rendered the more probable by the 



