ACALEPHjE.

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ACALEPHiE.

Lesson (Histoire naturelle des Zoophytes. Acalephes.Paris , 1843) has arranged the Acalephae in the “ Suites aButton.” As this naturalist had made a voyage round theworld, and enjoyed sufficient opportunities of seeing most ofthese marine animals in a fresh state and alive, it was fairto expect that he would be most completely master of hissubject; his performance, however, has but little corre-sponded with this expectation. With the internal structureof the Acalephse and the history of their development Lessonappears to have given himself small concern. In this workhe has, for the most part, thrown loosely together all thematerials appertaining to the subject, without working themup into a whole, and in doing this has caused to be printedquite literally only those German writings that have appearedas translations in the French journals, whilst he has ignoredthe remaining German works, with the excuse that he hadmet with no translator for them, although there are, inParis , numerous persons who live by translating German works. The Reporter consequently restricts himself, on thepresent occasion, merely to exhibiting Lesson’s systematicarrangement of the Acalephse. He institutes in them thefollowing eight families : I. Hero inn:, with the eight tribes:Cestoidese, Callianirae, Leucothoese, Calyrnmese, Neisidae,Ocyroeae, Cydippae, and Berose. II. Medusa , which hasfour subdivisions. (1) Medusae without proboscis and stem,with the five tribes : Eudorae, Carybdese, Marsupialae, Nuclei-ferae, Berenicidae; (2) True Medusae, with the three tribes :Thalassantliae, iEquoridae, Oceanidae; (3) Medusae with astem ; and (4) Medusae with a proboscis, with the two tribes:Monostomae and Polystomae. III. Diph yue, with the threetribes : Polygastricae, Monogastricse, and Dubiae. IY.Polytom® or Plethosomye, with the two tribes : Plethosomaeand Stephanomiae. Y. Ph ysophorye, with the seventribes : Rhizophorae, Discolabae, Angelae, Athorybiae, Physo-