Thus a planula larva may be a blastula, or but slightly advanced beyond this stage, or it may be (and most usually is) a parenchymula; or in some cases (Scyphomedusae) it may be a gastrula. It should be added that the process of development, the gastrulation as it is termed, may be shortened by the immigration of cells taking place at one pole only, and in a connected layer with orderly arrangement, so that the gastrula stage is reached at once from the blastula without any intervening parenchymula stage. This is a process of gastrulation by invagination which is found in all animals above the Coelenterata, but which is very rare in the Cnidaria, and is known only in the Scyphomedusae amongst the Hydrozoa. [Illustration: From Balfour, after Kowalewsky. FIG. 1.--Formation of the Diblastula of _Eucope_ (one of the Calyptoblastic _Hydromedusae_) by immigration. A, B, C, three successive stages. _ep_, Ectoderm; _hy_, endoderm; _al_, enteric cavity.] After the gastrula stage, which is found as a developmental stage in all Enterozoa, the embryo of the Hydrozoa proceeds to develop characters which are peculiar to the Coelenterata only. Round the blastopore hollow outgrowths, variable in number, arise by the evagination of the entire body-wall, both ectoderm and endoderm. Each outgrowth contains a prolongation of the archenteric cavity (compare figs. 2 and 3, A). In this way is formed a ring of tentacles, the most characteristic organs of the Cnidaria. They surround a region which is termed the peristome, and which contains in the centre the blastopore, which becomes the adult mouth. The archenteron becomes the gastrovascular system or coelenteron. Between the ectoderm and endoderm a gelatinous supporting layer, termed the mesogloea, makes its appearance. The gastrula has now become an _actinula_, which may be termed the distinctive larva of the Cnidaria, and doubtless represents in a transitory manner the common ancestor of the group. In no case known, however, does the actinula become the adult, sexually mature individual, but always undergoes further modifications, whereby it develops into either a polyp or a medusa. [Illustration: From Gegenbaur's _Elements of Comparative Anatomy_. FIG. 2.--Diagram of a Diblastula. a, Blastopore. b, Archenteric cavity. c, Endoderm. d, Ectoderm.] To become a polyp, the actinula (fig. 3, A) becomes attached to some firm object by the pole farthest from the mouth, and its growth preponderates in the direction of the principal axis, that is to say, the axis passing through the mouth (fig. 3, _a-b_). As a result the body becomes columnar in form (fig. 3, B), and without further change passes into the characteristic polyp-form (see POLYP).