48 CTENOPHORES OF THE ATLANTIC COAST OF NORTH AMERICA 
Genus BEROE Browne, 1756. 
Beroé, BRowneE, 1756, Civil and Nat. Hist. Jamaica, p. 384; also, edition 2, 1789.— 
Fasricius, 1780, Fauna Grénlandica, p. 361.—CuuN, 1880, Ctenophoren des 
Golfes von Neapel, p. 306.—Acassiz and Mayer, 1899, Bull. Museum Comp. 
Zool. at Harvard College, vol. 32, p. 177.—MosEr, 1903, Ctenophoren der 
Siboga-Exped., p. 20.—BENHAM, 1907, Trans. New Zealand Institute, vol. 
39, P. 139-—MosEr, 1908, Abhandl. Akad. Miinchen, Suppl. Bd. 1, Abhandl. 
4, p. 18, 1907; Ctenophoren der deutsche Siidpolar-Exped., Bd. 11, Zool. 3, 
p- 153.—Maas, 1908, Méduses Exped. Antarctique Frangaise, p. 15. 
Idyia, FREMINVILLE, 1809, Nouv. Bull. Soc. Philomat., p. 329. 
Beroé, Medea, Pandora, EscuHscHoutTz, 1829, Syst. der Acal., pp. 35, 39- 
Idya, Cydalisia, LEsson, 1843, Hist. Zooph. Acal., p. 67. 
Rangia, Idyia, Idyiopsis, Acassiz, L., 1860, Cont. Nat. Hist. U. S., vol. 3, pp. 191, 
270, 288, 296. 
Pandora, Moses, 1908, Abhandl. Akad. Miinchen, Suppl. Bd. 1, Abhandl. 4, p. 32, 
1909; Ctenophoren der deutsche Stidpolar-Exped., Bd. 11, Zool. 3, p. 159. 
Pandora, preoccupied for Mollusca by BRuGUIERE, 1791. 
GENERIC CHARACTERS. 
Body miter-shaped, egg-shaped, or conical; extended laterally in 
the stomodzal axis. Mouth opening wide and ectodermal portion of 
stomach (stomodeum) voluminous. The polar-plate surrounding the 
sense-organ at the aboral pole is fringed with a row of branched papille. 
There are neither tentacles nor tentacular vessels. There are ciliated 
areas upon the walls of the stomodeum near the mouth. The axial 
funnel-tube which extends upward to the sense-organ, is deeply cleft so 
that 2 lateral vessels extend upward to the 2 apical excretion-pores on 
the sides of the pole-plate. 8 meridional vessels and 2 paragastric canals. 
The meridional vessels lie under the 8 rows of ciliary combs; the 2 para- 
gastric vessels extend down the middle of the broad sides of the animal 
and branch out in a J-like manner near the mouth, and fuse with the 
meridional canals of that side only, but in B. ovata the 8 meridional 
canals may be placed in communication one with another by means of 
an anastomosing network of side branches, thus establishing a circum 
oral canal-system. L. Agassiz and Chun state that these anastomosing 
vessels do not cross the narrow sides of the body, thus leaving the 4 
meridional vessels of one broad side separated from those of the other 
broad side; but I find that while this is true of the young, in mature 
specimens of B. ovata from Tortugas all 8 of the meridional vessels are 
connected by the network, which extends across the narrow sides of the 
animal. In B. cucumis, however, the side-branches do not anastomose, 
so that Agassiz’s statement is true for this species only. 
The type species is Beroé ovata of the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and 
Pacific. 
In Beroé ovata the side branches from the 2 oral vessels and from the 
8 meridional canals are deep-lying and anastomose, fusing to some extent 
with the 2 paragastric canals. In B. cucumis, however, these fusions do 
not take place and the branches do not anastomose, and the side branches 
are nearer the surface than in B. ovata. 
It has been pointed out by Chun that about 45 species of Beroide 
have been described under 8 generic names, the genera being based 
mainly on coloration and on external form of the body. Chun, however, 
came to the conclusion that all of these forms fall into one genus Beroé. 
The great diversity of opinion among older authors came from a failure 
