It was discovered in the tropical lily tank of the Botanical Gardens in June, 1880, and swarmed in great numbers year after year—then suddenly disappeared. It has since been found in similar tanks in Sheffield, Lyons, and Munich. Only male specimens were discovered, and the native home of the wonderful visitor is still unknown.
Fig. 14.
The minute polyp attached to the rootlets of water-plants—from which the Jelly-fish Limnocodium was found to be ‘budded off.’
Fig. 15.
One of the peculiar sense-organs from the edge of the swimming disc of Limnocodium. C, cavity of capsule; EC, ectoderm; EN, endoderm. Sense-organs of identical structure are found in the Freshwater Jelly-fish of Lake Tanganyika and in no other jelly-fish.
Animal and Vegetable Morphography.—Were I to attempt to give an account of the new kinds of animals and plants discovered since 1881, I should have to offer a bare catalogue, for space would not allow me to explain the interest attaching to each. Explorers have been busy in all parts of the world—in Central Africa, in the Antarctic, in remote parts of China, in Patagonia and Australia, and on the floor of the ocean as well as in caverns, on mountain tops, and in great lakes and rivers. We have learnt much that is new as to distribution; countless new forms have been discovered, and careful anatomical and microscopical study conducted on specimens sent home to our laboratories. I cannot refrain from calling to mind the discovery of the eggs of the Australian duck-mole and hedgehog; the freshwater jelly-fish ([figs. 13], [14], and [15]) of Regent’s Park, the African lakes ([fig. 16]) and the Delaware River; the marsupial mole of Central Australia; the okapi ([figs. 17], [18], and [19]); the breeding and transformations of the common eel ([fig. 20]); the young and adult of the mud-fishes of Australia, Africa, and South America; the fishes of the Nile and Congo; the gill-bearing earth-worms and mud-worms; the various forms of the caterpillar-like Peripatus; strange deep-sea fishes, polyps and sponges.
