A, A hydriform person giving rise to medusiform person by budding from th margin of the disk; B, free swimming medusa (Steenstrupia of Forbes) detached from the same, with manubrial genitali.
If the embryo is set free as a free-swimming, so-called planula-larva, in the blastula, parenchymula, or gastrula stage, then a free actinula stage is not found; if, on the other hand, a free actinula occurs, then there is no free planula stage.
Brooks, on the other hand, as stated above, regards the medusa as the older type and looks upon both polyp and medusa, in the Hydromedusae, as derived from a free-swimming or floating actinula, the polyp being thus merely a fixed nutritive stage, possessing secondarily acquired powers of multiplication by budding.
The parasite effects a lodgment in the host either by invading it as a free-swimming planula, or, apparently, in other cases, as a spore-embryo which is captured and swallowed as food by the host.
It is absurd to call the larva of a newt or of a Caecilian a tadpole, nor is the free-swimming embryo of a frog as it leaves the egg a tadpole.
