The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 59, September, 1862: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and PoliticsVarious
History
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, No. 59, September, 1862: A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
As each individual separates from the community of which it has made a
part, it reverses its position, and, instead of turning the margin of
the disk upward, it turns it downward, thus bringing the mouth below and
the curve of the disk above. These free individuals have been described
under the name of _Ephyra_. This is the third phase of the existence of
our Jelly-Fish. It swims freely about, a transparent, umbrella-like
disk, with a proboscis hanging from the lower side, which, to complete
the comparison, we may call the handle of the umbrella. The margin of
the disk is even more deeply lobed than in the Hydroid condition, and in
the middle of each lobe is a second depression, quite deep and narrow,
at the base of which is an eye. How far such organs are gifted with the
power of vision we cannot decide; but the cells of which they are
composed certainly serve the purpose of facets, of lenses and prisms,
and must convey to the animal a more or less distinct perception of
light and color. The lobes are eight in number, as before, with a tube
diverging from the centre of the body into each lobe. Shorter tubes
between the lobes alternate with these, making thus sixteen radiating
tubes, all ramifying more or less.
[Illustration: Ephyra of Aurelia flavidula.]
[Illustration: Aurelia flavidula, the common white Jelly-Fish of our
sea-shores, seen from above: c, mouth; eeeeee, eyes; mmmm, lobes or
curtain of the mouth in outlines; ooo, ovaries; ttt, tentacles; ww
ramified tubes.]
From this stage to its adult condition, the animal undergoes a
succession of changes in the gradual course of its growth,
uninterrupted, however, by any such abrupt transition as that by which
it began its life as a free animal. The lobes are gradually obliterated,
so that the margin becomes almost an unbroken circle. The eight eyes
were, as I have said, at the bottom of depressions in the centre of the
several lobes; but, by the equalizing of the marginal line, the gradual
levelling, as it were, of all the inequalities of the edge, the eyes are
pushed out, and occupy eight spots on the margin, where a faint
indentation only marks what was before a deep cut in the lobe. The eight
tubes of the lobes have extended in like manner to the edge, and join it
just at the point where the eyes are placed, so that the extremity of
each tube unites with the base of each eye. Those parts of the margin
filling the spaces between the eyes correspond to the depressions
dividing the lobes or scallops in the earlier stage, and to those
radiate the eight other tubes alternating with the eye-tubes, now
divided into numerous branches. Along each of these spaces is developed
a fine, delicate fringe of tentacles, hanging down like a veil when the
animal is at rest, or swept back when it is in motion. In the previous
stage, the tubes ramified toward the margin; but now they branch at or
near their point of starting from the central cavity, so extensively
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