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Show 180 MESSRS. L. MURBACH AND C. SHEARER O N [June 16, Habitat. - Puget Sound, collected by Kincaid ; Victoria Harbour, collected by Shearer. Discussion.-The principal points in which this species approaches the Pacific form given by Agassiz and Mayer (3) are the large size of the tentacle-bulbs, the distribution of the otocysts and their contents. It differs from it in the shape of the simple oral lobes, the tentacle-bulbs, and the position of the gonads. Several of our specimens seemed to agree more closely with P. variabile than with P. gregarium, apparently the only difference being in the number of tentacles. From Claus's paper (10) it would seem that cirri are present in all the Phialidia, and that they are usually on the sides of the tentacle-bulbs. Haeckel distinguishes three species of Phialidium-P. variabile, P. languidum, and P. gregarium. Maas (26) departs from Haeckel in retaining the species P. flavidulum, with its larger number of otocysts and tentacles, Haeckel placing it under P. variabile. Haeckel has arranged some twenty or twenty-five names under P. variabile as synonyms; the original descriptions of many of these, as Brown has remarked, are far too vague for their identification to-day. Brown (8) distinguishes as distinct from Haeckel's species P. buskianum, P. temporarium, and P. cymbaloideum. The great variability in the members of this group renders it especially difficult to determine the value of the various species until their hydroid forms are recognized. Agassiz (2), in speaking of Oceania languida {P. languidum), remarks on the extraordinary attitudes assumed by this Medusa. One of these attitudes is given in fig. 102, where the animal is rolled up upon itself, the opposite edges of the bell coming together. Many of our examples exhibited this peculiar attitude, while others were folded in a three-cornered manner, something like the attitude in which Brandt (5) pictures his Staurophora mertensii (pis. 24 k 25). The specimens from Prof. Kincaid's collection also exhibited these attitudes. They were taken from a different part of Puget Sound. IV. ^EQUORID^E Eschscholtz. MESONEMA Eschscholtz (Haeckel, 18, p. 225). 1. MESONEMA VICTORIA, sp. nov. (Plate XIX. figs. 1, 1 a, & 2, and Plate XXII. fig. 2.) Specific description.-The bell is hemispherical, 7 cm. broad by 3-5 cm. high, tapering to a thin flexible margin. A well-developed velum is present. Tentacles numerous, over 100, shorter than the diameter of the bell. In the same row with the tentacles are found numerous small papilla?, sometimes between the tentacles, sometimes below them. Otocysts and excretory papilla? are present. The gastric cone is not pedunculated, but is lens-shaped and almost hemispherical. Stomach about the |