In external form and appearance the Hydrozoa exhibit such striking differences that there would seem at first sight to be little in common between the more divergent members of the group. Nevertheless there is no other class in the animal kingdom with better marked characteristics, or with more uniform morphological peculiarities underlying the utmost diversity of superficial characters. All Hydrozoa, in the first place, exhibit the three structural features distinctive of the Coelentera (q.v.). (1) The body is built up of two layers only, an external protective and sensory layer, the ectoderm, and an internal digestive layer, the endoderm. (2) The body contains but a single internal cavity, the coelenteron or gastrovascular space, which may be greatly ramified, but is not shut off into cavities distinct from the central digestive space. (3) The generative cells are produced in either the ectoderm or endoderm, and not in a third layer arising in the embryo, distinct from the two primary layers; in other words, there is no mesoderm or coelom. To these three characters the Hydrozoa add a fourth which is distinctive of the subdivision of the Coelenterata termed the Cnidaria; that is to say, they always possess peculiar stinging organs known as nettle-cells, or _nematocysts_ (_Cnidae_), each produced in a cell forming an integral part of the animal's tissues. The Hydrozoa are thus shown to belong to the group of Coelenterata Cnidaria, and it remains to consider more fully their distinctive features, and in particular those which mark them off from the other main division of the Cnidaria, the Anthozoa (q.v.), comprising the corals and sea-anemones. The great diversity, to which reference has already been made, in the form and structure of the Hydrozoa is due to two principal causes. In the first place, we find in this group two distinct types of person or individual, the polyp and the medusa (qq.v.), each capable of a wide range of variations; and when both polyp and medusa occur in the life-cycle of the same species, as is frequently the case, the result is an alternation of generations of a type peculiarly characteristic of the class. In the second place, the power of non-sexual reproduction by budding is practically of universal occurrence among the Hydrozoa, and by the buds failing to separate from the parent stock, colonies are produced, more or less complicated in structure and often of great size. We find that polyps may either bud other polyps or may produce medusae, and that medusae may bud medusae, though never, apparently, polyps. Hence we have a primary subdivision of the colonies of Hydrozoa into those produced by budding of polyps and those produced by budding of medusae. The former may contain polyp-persons and medusa-persons, either one kind alone or both kinds combined; the latter will contain only medusa-persons variously modified.