152 The Blue Cyancea. 



three- sided flaps, a little bowed at the sides, and rounded at the 

 end, where there is a slit for the supposed visual organ. The 

 inferior skin of the stomach, and of its folded pouches, is of a 

 transparent grey hue, but the inner surface of these parts, 

 which is inclosed in the disk-mass is blue; and this, sinking in 

 many places into the disk-mass by the contact of two coloured 

 surfaces, gives origin to many blue lines. " Thus we perceive 

 over the centrally-placed stomach a somewhat indented blue 

 circle, and within the same a net of such skin-folds. From this 

 circle proceed sixteen rays,* each of which lies immediately 

 over the median line of one of the accessory pouches." In the 

 specimen which I have figured, when viewed vertically from 

 above, the whole area bounded by the outer edge of the pouches 

 is of a rich translucent blue, of which the central portion, cor- 

 responding to the circular orifice of the mouth, is of the deepest 

 intensity ; while from this deeper part twenty-four slender bands 

 of ivJdtisJi radiate to the well-defined edge of the lighter blue^ 

 one proceeding to each of the eight principal incisions, and one 

 towards a point some distance on each side of the visual organ. 

 The lips or furbelows are short, folded strongly, and overlapped 

 at the edges. The tentacles in EschschohVs specimen were 

 white. Lamarck describes them as blue; mine agree with the 

 latter, for they are of the same full clear blue as the disk. 

 These organs, originating as before described, constitute eight 

 groups of about forty tentacles each, which are graduated in 

 length, the largest being in the centre of the group, the shortest 

 at the extreme sides. The actual length, however, varies con- 

 siderably, from an inch to six inches or more, at the pleasure of 

 the animal, as they are very contractile and extensile. As 

 usual, these organs are roughened by the presence of tubercles, 

 which are densely-crowded groups oicnidcv, or thread-capsules, 

 twenty to fitly in each, so closely set as to be in actual contact. 

 The cnidse are mostly of a short oval form, from l-1800th to 

 l-10,000th of an inch in length, each containing a chamber 

 occupying about half of its volume. The ecthoreum or veno- 

 mous thread is of great length; I traced one to l-18th of an 

 inch, or a hundred times the length of its cnida. The cnidee of 

 the furbelows arc much Larger, some reaching to 1-1 OOOtlrof 

 an inch, will) a linear chamber ; they arc scattered throughout 

 the gelatinous expansion of these appendages, but arc mostly 

 gated at the edges, which arc thence slightly thickened. 

 The stomaoh-pouohes arc somewhat hollowed in the outline of 

 their exterior border, so that Hair angles project. 



A \<-vy conspicuous feature in this Medusa, is the 1 presence 

 of arched folds into which the outline of the disk is 



thrown. These arc sixteen in number, eight wide and tall, 



* Also said to be blue ("rudiis sedceim cyaneit v )ia Uiu specific character. 



