1881. ] Lhe Siphonophores. 187 
I. DEVELOPMENT OF THE EGG. 
The new Aga/ma always begins its growth from an egg. I 
know of no case where any other method of origin than from an 
egg takes place among Siphonophores. Alexander Agassiz 
describes in Agalmopsis cara a reproduction by a bud from the 
stem, and says that this bud has a well-developed float before it 
separates from the stem or axis. In Agalmopsis picta, a species 
closely allied to Agalmopsis cara, no such budding of a new col- 
ony takes place. In the excellent volume already quoted, enti- 
tled “Seaside Studies in Natural History,” it is suggested! that 
those organs which I have called “tasters,” drop off and develop 
into new colonies. I consider this supposition improbable as far as 
any known genus of tubular jelly fishes is concerned. In the genus 
Agalma, as before stated, reproduction is always from the egg. 
I was fortunate enough to find in the glass vessel in which the 
first Aga/ma captured by me was confined, that the water was filled 
with minute transparent spheres, no larger than the head of a pin. 
They floated about in the liquid, and were not limited to any 
definite depth, but when the contents of the glass became quiet, 
all rose to the surface, and thickly crowded together, covered it 
like so many small oil-globules. When they had collected in this 
way, I was able by means of a watch crystal to skim them off, and 
transfer all into a more convenient receptacle for study. 
These little oil-globule-like spheres were originally cast into the 
water from the female sexual bells, and are eggs, from each one of 
which grows a new Agalma. The female bells are found in grape- 
like cluster just below the feeding polyps, and appear to take the 
form of individuals, which have apportioned to themselves the 
single function of reproduction of new Aga/mata. They have no 
stomach nor mouths, but draw their nourishment from the cavity 
of the axis into which it has been poured by those individuals of 
the colony, which do all the eating for the Aga/ma, Each bell 
contains a single egg, and after that egg has been cast, the bell 
withers up, or is absorbed into the stem, or sometimes before the 
€gg escapes, breaks loose from its connection with the axis, and 
drops into the water with the contained egg. The last process 
takes place bya rupture of the pedicle by which the female bell is 
hung upon the axis of the Agalma, 
1 The authors state that they have never seen these “ closed Hydre” drop off, but 
they suggest that it ‘* seems natural to suppose that they do separate from the parent 
Stock”? to found new communities.—Sva-Side Studies, p. 80. 
