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Historical Theory and
Methods through Popular
Music, 1970–2000
“Those are the New Saints”

Kenneth L. Shonk, Jr.


and Daniel Robert McClure

Pop Music, Culture and Identity


Pop Music, Culture and Identity

Series Editors
Steve Clark
Graduate School Humanities and Sociology
University of Tokyo, Bunkyo-ku
Tokyo, Japan

Tristanne Connolly
Department of English
St Jerome’s University
Waterloo, ON, Canada

Jason Whittaker
School of English & Journalism
University of Lincoln, Lincoln
Lincs, United Kingdom
Pop music lasts. A form all too often assumed to be transient, ­commercial
and mass-cultural has proved itself durable, tenacious and continually
evolving. As such, it has become a crucial component in defining vari-
ous forms of identity (individual and collective) as influenced by nation,
class, gender and historical period. Pop Music, Culture and Identity
investigates how this enhanced status shapes the iconography of celeb-
rity, provides an ever-expanding archive for generational memory and
accelerates the impact of new technologies on performing, ­ packaging
and global marketing. The series gives particular emphasis to interdisci-
plinary approaches that go beyond musicology and seeks to validate the
informed testimony of the fan alongside academic methodologies.

More information about this series at


http://www.springer.com/series/14537
Kenneth L. Shonk, Jr. · Daniel Robert McClure

Historical Theory
and Methods through
Popular Music,
1970–2000
“Those are the New Saints”
Kenneth L. Shonk, Jr. Daniel Robert McClure
University of Wisconsin–La Crosse Chapman University
La Crosse, WI, USA Orange, CA, USA

Pop Music, Culture and Identity


ISBN 978-1-137-57071-0 ISBN 978-1-137-57072-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57072-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017940345

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017


The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this ­work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on micro-
films or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, elec-
tronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or
hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and
information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication.
Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied,
with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have
been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published
maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: © Victor Cardoner

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature


The registered company is Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW,
United Kingdom
For Lindsay
For Jennifer, Ani, and Everett
Acknowledgements

Real Names Be Proof


—Minutemen

Historical Theory and Methods through Popular Music: 1970–2000 is the


result of many years of friendship and professional partnership that began
in 2003 as classmates in the graduate history program at the California
State University, Fullerton. Over time our intellectual interests have
intersected and departed, yet our mutual interest in the cultural impor-
tance of alternative music has remained steadfast. This book is evidence
of that friendship, that convergence and divergence, and of our mutual
passions for the history of popular culture. Essentially, this book is the
­codification—if not intellectualization—of a decade’s worth of casual con-
versations between two friends who happen to be historians. As such, the
words and ideas contained within are our own, as are any mistakes, over-
sights, and unpopular opinions. Nonetheless, we have many to thank, as
numerous friends, family members, and colleagues have devoted their time
and intellectual energies towards refining our ideas and writing.

Kenneth
Many of the arguments advanced herein were during my HIS
102 courses taught between Spring 2015 and Fall 2016 at the
University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. As such, I would like to offer

vii
viii Acknowledgements

my highest level of gratitude to the students enrolled in those courses


whose feedback and class participation helped to foster the ide-
als articulated throughout the book, not to mention sitting through
an entire semester suffering through many of the musical choices
I played. Nonetheless, their enthusiasm for the course and par-
ticipation in the various intellectual exercises helped to sharpen the
pedagogy and theses central to this book. I am also greatly appre-
ciative of the feedback from members of the History Author’s Writing
Group (HAWG) from the History Department at UW-La Crosse.
Their commentaries, critiques, and encouragement were of great
help in the writing process. Of course, I owe much to my friend and
co-author Dan, who has done more than just about any other to foster
and grow my intellectual growth as a historian.
Many others have provided assistance or encouragement through-
out the years, and it is my pleasure to thank, in no particular order: Jana
Byars, Tiffany Trimmer, Eric Edwards, Christopher McCracken, Julie
Weiskopf, Merose Hwang, Philip Naylor, Timothy J. McMahon, Irene
Guenther, Heidi Jones, Sean Farrell, McKayla Sutton, Claire Carey,
Bairbre Ni Chiardha, Marie Moeller, and Nicholas Schlensker. My par-
ents, Ken and Linda Shonk, have also been supportive throughout my
various academic and professional endeavors. Finally, I would like to
thank my wife, Lindsay Steiner. The beginning of our life together began
at the same time as this book project, and she has been an indispensable
source of love, support, and joy. It is to her that I dedicate this book.

Daniel
The idea for this book emerged while teaching historical theory and
methods seminars at California State University, Fullerton. As both a
long-debated pipedream and a blatant venture into commodifying our
Ph.D.s, this book is a reflection of my friendship with Ken as well as a
conjunction of our interests. Ken’s influence on my teaching and my
own work is immeasurable.
I would like to thank the following mentors-friends who helped shape
and critique my approach to history over the years: Winston James, Jochen
Burgtorf, Natalie Fousekis, Nancy Fitch, Gayle Brunelle, Touraj Daryaee,
Laura J. Mitchell, Bridget R. Cooks, Jared Sexton, Tiffany Willoughby-
Herard, Sohail Daulatzai, Mark Levine, Vinayak Chaturvedi, David
Igler, Emily Rosenberg, Victoria E. Johnson, Steve Topik, and Sharon
Acknowledgements ix

V. Salinger. I would also like to thank those who read through drafts of
various chapters: Ernesto Bassi, Jessie McClure, Nahum Chandler, Mark
R. Villegas, Robert Wood, Robert Chase, Robert McLain, Nicholas
Schlensker, and Jana Byars. I would also like to thank my brother, Richard
McClure, for his support and editing over the years. Finally, I would like to
thank my wife, Jennifer, and our children, Everett and Ani, for having the
patience to endure the abrupt changes in musical selections that occurred
with the completion of each chapter.
Contents

1 Introduction: The Process and Pedagogy


of Historical Theory 1

2 “400 Years”: Modernity, The Longue Durée,


and Jamaican Music 25

3 “This Charming Man”: Queer and Alternative


Masculinities, 1970–1994 59

4 “Will the Wolf Survive?”: Punk Rock and


Chicana/o Identity in Los Angeles 87

5 A Perfect New Loop: Hip-Hop, Deindustrialization,


and the Post-Civil Rights Era, 1973–2000 111

6 “The Pride of History”: Post-punk


and the Aesthetics of Post-modernity 141

7 Waveless: MTV and the “Quiet” Feminism


of the 1980s 171

8 Hiraeth: The Celtic Moment in 1980s


Alternative Rock 199

xi
xii Contents

9 “Feels Blind”: Counter-Hegemony in Alternative Rock


During the Reagan/Thatcher Era 227

10 “No Depression”: The Nostalgia and Authenticity of


Alternative Country 259

11 Conclusion 291

Index 295
CHAPTER 1

Introduction: The Process and Pedagogy


of Historical Theory

Historical Theory and Methods through Popular Music, 1970–2000: Those


are the New Saints examines forms of late twentieth-century popular
music from various schools of historical theory. Through this prism, we
situate popular music both in the context of the late twentieth-century
North Atlantic world and the historical theories utilized to explicate
and cull meaning from the aesthetics of popular music. In particular, we
examine the ways in which various artists transgressed societal norms
and political frameworks through different forms of popular music. This
work is driven by the desire to gain a deeper meaning and understand-
ing of the artists that so willingly and explicitly sought to challenge,
critique, and, in some cases, redefine socio-cultural norms rooted in
centuries-long historical processes—processes often born at the same
moment the historical profession took form.1 In our effort to under-
stand this era of alternative music we discovered that a purely narrative
approach failed to account for the wide—and wild—variations amongst
the artists of this era. By viewing these artistic sub-genres through
the prism(s) of historical theory, we found a deeper understanding of
these artists’ expressions and the world they attempted to create as they
engaged with the dominant structures of society during the last third of
the twentieth century.
Our work highlights a period spanning 1970 through 2000. We chose
1970 as the watershed of a new era, as this was the year in which the par-
agons of 1960s popular music—the Beatles—announced their break-up;

© The Author(s) 2017 1


K.L. Shonk and D.R. McClure, Historical Theory and Methods
through Popular Music, 1970–2000, Pop Music, Culture and Identity,
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-57072-7_1
2 K.L. SHONK AND D.R. McCLURE

in May of that year, shootings at Kent State effectively ended the so-
called Age of Aquarius, as youthful protest provoked a reaction of mar-
tial violence; in August, Lou Reed, one of the founding members of the
Velvet Underground (arguably the first alternative rock band), left the
band; artists Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin (and Jim Morrison the fol-
lowing year) died in the fall, marking an end to the psychedelic hippie
rock music symbolicaly inaugurated by the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.
Finally, 1970 witnessed David Bowie’s ascension to iconic status as his
album Space Oddity, though released in late 1969, helped to create an
audience for a music of, by, and for, the weird.2 Very quickly, Bowie
helped to initiate glam rock with his The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust
and the Spiders from Mars in 1972, while producing two other key
albums: the glam-influenced second solo album, Transformer, by former
Velvet, Lou Reed, and the third album by The Stooges—a crucial fore-
runner to punk rock—Raw Power.3 Speaking more broadly, the 1970s
followed in the wake of massive cultural shifts across the Atlantic world,
helping to create space(s) for a wave of musical genres and artists engag-
ing in explicitly anti-hegemonic aesthetics. Aspects of this discontent
may be seen at the 1970 Isle of Wight festival, where the social distance
between 1960s performers and their audience grew so far it snapped the
idealistic non-hierarchical, anti-establishment stance driving the era’s
musical counter-culture. Rock and roll had become big business by the
late 1960s, with the 1970 Isle of Wight festival—loudly protested by ele-
ments radicalized by the events of 1968—appearing as a poorly organ-
ized production with highly paid performers and a significant number of
non-paying attendees. Festival MC, Rikki Farr, proved to be the vessel
of the era’s collapse of idealism, as he screamed at the audience: “We
put this festival on for you bastards, with a lot of love. We worked for
one year for you pigs. Now you wanna break our walls and you wanna
destroy it? Well you go to hell!” The audience discontent was evident
to one young man, who noted the new era of hierarchy: “and our plas-
tic gods, the musicians, are coming and taking away like, uh, £80,000,
you know? So, those are the new saints.”4 This gap between performer
and audience, emerging as the music industry entered an era of corpo-
rate conglomeration in the 1970s and 1980s, created a vacuum for new
restless energies of youth rebellion discontent with former idols. In the
wake of this symbolic end to the 1960s, various genres of music arose
counter to mainstream music: an alternative to a popular music that
appeared to stop speaking to the youth culture from which it emerged.
1 INTRODUCTION: THE PROCESS AND PEDAGOGY OF HISTORICAL THEORY 3

As George Lipsitz suggests, “Much more than the culture of the more
celebrated 1960s, the popular culture of the 1970s has become a foun-
dational source and an informative archive for succeeding generations,
because, even in its excesses, it registered the effects of a historical turn-
ing point.”5 The breach in the edifice opened to an enormous flood.
Studying popular music outside the mainstream unveils parallel narra-
tives elucidating cultural movements that actively sought to distinguish
themselves from the mainstream. Most importantly, the space between
these two fields tells a deeper story about culture, power, and aesthetic
artistry. The result reveals a general tension between the status quo
and those who seek to operate outside—if not alter or redefine—social,
political, cultural, and/or economic constructs. In the divergent space
between the mainstream and marginal exists a tension clearly delineat-
ing an alternative from the mainstream, the weird from the “normal,”
the rebellious from the conservative. In other words, between 1970
and 2000 there occurred a splintering of popular music that produced
a multi-faceted assault on the mainstream. This piecing apart is revela-
tory of an era in which the politics of the weird, the voice of the willing
and forcibly marginalized, the young, and the hitherto voiceless actively
pushed back against the hegemonic forces of the mainstream. Historical
Theory and Methods through Popular Music, 1970–2000 explores how
alternative music(s) rebelled against the mainstream, while simultane-
ously finding themselves opening markets for music, which, ironically,
regenerated the mainstream—in short, in its struggle against the main-
stream, weird started selling, inadvertently becoming the seeds for a new
mainstream.6 This book outlines these various layers through case studies
wrapped together with historical theories. Historical theory facilitates an
analysis of historical phenomena using sets of language and concepts in
a critical manner largely absent from traditional empiricist narrative his-
tory.7 The movement away and criticism toward empiricist history has
had the added effect of making historical inquiry self-conscious of its
own limitations in its truth-making. The main sets of historical theories
used include: critical race theory, gender and sexuality, nationalism and
identity, class, post-colonial and post-slavery, post-industrial, post-mod-
ern, ideas of authenticity and nostalgia, as well as the overarching frame-
work influencing the entire era: modernity and its cultural influence on
popular music via the centuries-old, longue durée processes of colonialism
and imperialism, capitalism, the Atlantic slave system, the enlightenment,
and the nation-state (or nationalism).
4 K.L. SHONK AND D.R. McCLURE

The conscious utilization and application of historical theory to examine


popular music provides an accessible set of examples showing how theory
mobilizes a conceptual map for the historian’s search to understand the
past. Theory-centric historical inquiry also enables the scholar to under-
stand their own place within the social system from which they study the
past. In short, theory helps make the historian self-conscious of their posi-
tionality; that is their location within the various hierarchies of race, gen-
der, sexuality, class, or religion—particularly if one belongs to the very
group benefiting the most from the naturalization of social relations aimed
toward dominating or silencing other positionalities. Historical theory
encourages the scholar to consider how their own status and background
helps to inform their approach to writing and researching history. In this
regard, historical theory enables a relative democratization of history, for
theory—especially since the Civil Rights era of the 1960s—has had the
effect of undermining the empirical perspective that the past can be recon-
structed an understood, not unlike a Paleontologist working to understand
a past epoch through the construction of a dinosaur’s skeleton. Born at the
dawn of nineteenth-century imperialism, the empirical approach absent
theoretical considerations woven through primary texts historically privi-
leged those who have historically comprised the academy: upper class, men
of European descent. Until relatively recently, the cliché that the “winners
write the history” largely held true. Theory, on the other hand, helps fore-
ground this imbalance of power by not only allowing for competing view-
points, but also through the enabling of the examination of the very power
structures reifying the voices of those who have historically comprised the
Academy. Like the musicians discussed throughout Historical Theory and
Methods through Popular Music: 1970–2000, the scholars advancing the-
ory-centric history have helped to create a model of alterity aimed toward
undermining the hegemony of the Academy and its favored historical
approach: empiricism. Finally, it is not coincidental that the period of music
covered in this book coincides with the same time period when new his-
torical theories and methods began circulating through the Academy—they
all found expression through the ideas and ontology circulating through
modernity, shaping expressions of inquiry and popular culture through the
same set of historical processes.
Accordingly, here is our attempt to explore our own positionalities and
relationship to theory, popular music, and alternativity. The authors of
Historical Theory and Methods through Popular Music, 1970–2000 are cis,
heterosexual, white men born and raised on the West coast of the United
1 INTRODUCTION: THE PROCESS AND PEDAGOGY OF HISTORICAL THEORY 5

States. Demographically, we were born towards the end of what has come
to be defined as Generation X, and were raised in middle to lower-middle
class families. It is important to state that up front, for it will do much
to explain the historical context within which we, the authors, developed
our understanding of popular music and its relationship to the disci-
pline of history. What has been labeled as “alternative” music for us was
our norm—alternative stations were an option on our radios and, if we
waited long enough, we might see on MTV a New Order or Cure video
wedged in between the latest from Def Leppard or Janet Jackson. If we
wanted a more concentrated dose of alternative music, we could program
our VCRs to record MTV’s The Cutting Edge or its successor 120 min,
or we could watch Request Video each afternoon on KDOC in Orange
County, California.8 Born in the early to mid-1970s, an alternative music
soundtrack layered our adolescence in sounds confronting more main-
stream expressions on the radio and in record stores. We became men at
a time when there was a full spectrum of masculinities: from the stand-
ard masculinity of athletes, politicians, and entertainers to the alterna-
tive masculinities of Morrissey, David Johansen, David Bowie, Chuck D,
Kurt Cobain, and Robert Smith. In addition, women artists such as Joan
Jett, Madonna, Grace Jones, Siouxsie Sioux, Kathleen Hannah, Queen
Latifah, and Cyndi Lauper, among others, taught us about the broader
spectrum of femininity and feminism(s). In short, we grew up in a golden
age when alternative music was available to us, the disaffected.
Both of us were athletes—football, baseball, basketball, and track
and field—and instead of listening exclusively to hard rock and metal,
we found ourselves also listening to N.W.A, Suicidal Tendencies, or
the Alarm to get ourselves physically and mentally prepared to engage
in the “battle” of sport. As we underwent the physical rigor and mental
training to become a part of what we call the warrior class (the capital-
ist business soldier of the 1980s United States), alternative music fueled
and facilitated our developing sense that what was mainstream—from
expectations of our masculinity to historical norms and myths taught in
public school—was a prescribed routine: safe, predictable, and a con-
sensus generating consumer product shaping one’s identity, offering an
exchange of security for assimilation into the narrative of the new morn-
ing in America. The scent of bullshit was too noticeable, however, and
we slowly began to object to the prescribed rules of acceptable musical
consumption—one of us took refuge in 1960s and 1970s classic rock
and the other in “college rock” and hip-hop. Upon reflection and the
6 K.L. SHONK AND D.R. McCLURE

exchange of notes over the years amidst the consumption of too much
coffee, we noted how our search for alternative music coincided with our
bristling against the ordained inheritance of the American masculine tra-
dition. Why did we rebel against the warrior class, and why did alterna-
tive music become the background music for this revolt? These questions
circulated through graduate school, and, upon a dare, we set out to map
these contours through this book. Ultimately, we recognized ourselves
within the larger framework of rebellion stoked by various forms of
alternative music—from Jamaica to the U.K. to the South Bronx to Los
Angeles, soundtracks that reflected the will to transgress societal expecta-
tions. Accordingly, we identified with the iconoclasm of hardcore punk,
British shoegaze, Alt. Country, Native Tongues hip-hop, reggae, and
Riot Grrrl—all musical alternatives, at one point or another, to the main-
stream consumption channels.
While we situate the music we analyze within the framework of alter-
nativity, this should not take away from the fact that some of these art-
ists were and are internationally renowned, in some cases selling millions
of albums. The irony of using international renown and album sales to
warrant a study of alternative music is not lost upon us. Indeed, it rep-
resents the strength of theory discussed above: although some artists
developed within alternative frameworks outside the mainstream—often
performing the very antithesis of mainstream music—their music often
“crossed over” to the mainstream. Does this make it less alternative?
What does this tell us about the ever-shifting tastes of mainstream audi-
ences? What does this tell us about the mainstream’s need for alternative
music—and by extension, what does this tell us about society’s need for
radical ideas assimilated into the lifeblood of society, in an act of cultural
regeneration? Thus, alternative music is both an aesthetic stance against
a mainstream, as well as a category of music not yet mainstream; or, at
the very least, the music has the potential to become mainstream. This
book works through these questions, highlighting the post-1960s music
world—an era less studied as a whole across the past 40 years.
Alternative music reached a series of peaks between the 1970s and the
end of the twentieth century, ebbing and flowing, embracing and reject-
ing, coopting and innovating its way through independent and corpo-
rate platforms of capitalism. Alternative music provided a language and
identity through which one could express disdain for conventional cul-
ture while offering a space that provided one with “a comforting feel-
ing of belonging to a subculture with more genuine values than the
1 INTRODUCTION: THE PROCESS AND PEDAGOGY OF HISTORICAL THEORY 7

mainstream.”9 To be a varsity football player and have an affinity for


the Smiths or De La Soul provided an argot by which we consciously
engaged in a minor rebellion against the trajectory laid out for us.
Alternative was our music for our time and for our place. More than this,
however, alternative music opened the way for validating and under-
standing the nexus of history and society. These sets of musical gen-
res projected a narrative transgressing our conventional education and,
for a lack of a better term, cultural indoctrination: from Boogie Down
Productions, X-Clan, and Public Enemy10 we learned a meta-narrative
of black American history that challenged the Cold War triumphalism
found in public school curricula; seeing Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam writ-
ing in marker the words “Pro-Choice” on his arm during a performance
of “Porch” on MTV Unplugged taught us that men could be feminists;
Bikini Kill’s confrontational punk operated as aesthetic lectures on gen-
der and sexuality; viewing Madonna’s performance of “Like a Virgin”
at the 1984 MTV Video Awards taught us that notions of femininity
and feminism were far more complex than playground-forged concep-
tualizations of gender; and, finally, the iconoclastic facets of punk rock
warranted a burgeoning classism as Reaganomics sped past the point of
no return, a radical masculine force pressing against its other mainstream
manifestation of masculinity rooted in celebrity and the celebration of
wealth and excess.
Our connection to alternative music had manifold importance. As
noted above, alternative music and its aesthetics of rebellion validated
our worldview that disdained what we felt were the false promises of
mainstream culture. And, yes, “offered,” as our positionalities placed us
squarely within the mainstream thread of cultural and economic white
patriarchal heteronormative power structures. Most importantly: alter-
native music provided an entry point into understanding the complex
aspects of state and society—that is, we willfully consumed critiques
explicitly taking aim at various aspects of American society, Western civi-
lization, or, plainly, modernity. As such, when we listened to “You Must
Learn” by Boogie Down Productions, we were hearing a parallel narra-
tive of history excluded from the Eurocentric perspective of world and
American history as mandated by state bureaucrats. Absent from our his-
tory curriculum was a longue durée history of modernity connecting the
Atlantic slave system to post-1970s post-industrial capitalism and the age
of mass incarceration—all narratives of history unavailable to us, except
through hip-hop and reggae. We found struggles of hegemony against the
8 K.L. SHONK AND D.R. McCLURE

rise of finance and multinational conglomerates at the dawn of neoliber-


alism and Reaganomics through cryptic stickers glimpsed at small, inde-
pendent records reading “Corporate Rock Sucks”; the explosion of Third
Wave feminism at the end of the 1980s; the punk rock that railed against
Reagan and Thatcher; Welsh nationalist rock that fantasized about the end
of the British monarchy; and grunge rock that presented an alternative
model of masculinity directly challenging American manhood. This music
helped bring concepts of intersectionality and white male privilege into
the minds of those raised within a hyper-patriotic, xenophobic, patriarchal
environment. What we have since discovered is that our appreciation of
alternative music provided us with a base entry point for understanding
the complexity of historical and cultural theory. Though we were not able
to articulate it then—we lacked the language and knowledge of theory—
we can do so now. Herein lies one purpose of this book: an attempt to uti-
lize the language, knowledge, and aesthetic of alternative music’s alterity
to introduce readers to some fundamental aspects of historical theory.
Our other aim is to view alternative music as a prism through which to
analyze the music of the Anglo-Black world of the late twentieth century
against the backdrop of the centuries-old processes of modernity. Discussed
more at length below, this macro approach helps pose questions such as:
How does alternative music look within the big picture—or longue durée?
The longue durée contextualizes history through a framework of hundreds
of years, enabling the historian to foreground elements of the past which
evolve more slowly than others—including ideas of race and gender. As a
commodity circulating through the structures and systems of modernity,
what does alternative music tell us about mainstream society? In embracing
the concepts of modernity and the longue durée, we stress the role of the
systemic rather than the older, empirical notion of the heroic individual, as
all historical actors operate within their given timeframes, ontologies, and
ideologies: i.e., we are all creatures of colonialism, the afterlife of slavery,
and patriarchy. Thus, consciously or unconsciously, how did alternative
music identify and critique the fundamental contradictions of modernity—
explicitly and implicitly? How did these musical expressions shed light on
the cracks in the foundation of Western hegemony?

Alternativity
At this point it is important that we discern what we mean by alternativ-
ity and alternative music. The two are neither mutually inclusive nor are
they mutually exclusive. When we speak of alternativity, we are referring
1 INTRODUCTION: THE PROCESS AND PEDAGOGY OF HISTORICAL THEORY 9

to the conscious effort by a cultural “tribe” to diametrically align itself


against a codified aspect of society, whether it is a position of criticism
or rebellion.11 This idea conforms with Lindholm’s notion of authen-
ticity, noting that alternative music spaces often provide “the inspiring
feeling of belonging to a spiritual elite who worship the same countercul-
tural musical gods and oppose the bourgeois norms.”12 These spaces of
alternativity, moreover, consistently form the contours of the next set of
mainstream trends. In his iconic work on the political economy of music,
Jacques Attali described the “prophetic” nature of music: “[Music] has
always been in its essence a herald of times to come…. Music is more
than an object of study: it is a way of perceiving the world. A tool of
understanding.”13 While not all weirdness attributed to alternative music
makes its way into the mainstream—just listen to No Wave groups such
as DNA, Mars, or Teenage Jesus and the Jerks—the elements of alter-
nativity gathering market shares nonetheless regenerate the mainstream
music industry’s need for “the next big thing.” The alternative era cov-
ered in this study reveals this aspect circulating through popular music,
how the difference and weirdness of alternative music, despite residing
in the large shadow of the mainstream, often becomes the herald for a
regenerated mainstream composed of aspects of alternativity. Indeed,
this project might have been based on fashion, visual arts such as film or
painting, or even sport. However, music was the most logical choice as
it offers the most breadth in that, unlike the “high” arts, popular music
is by far the most democratic, as attitude and aesthetic trumped sonic
virtuosity. Building on this definition of alternativity, alternative music
features artists that create music that is socially or culturally inclined
toward alternativity; music reflecting a counter to its more popular
forms. Aspects of alternativity contained within alternative music include
the aesthetic and aural. Our aim is not to employ musicological meth-
ods in analyzing alternative music, but rather to analyze the culture of
the music for the myriad artists’ explicit and implicit attempts to artisti-
cally transgress historical and social forces shaping and defining Western
hegemony and the processes of modernity shaping the identities and
lives of those living in the United States, Jamaica, Ireland, and Britain.
Aspects of alternativity are not new, for at any moment in history
there are social forces seeking to challenge or redefine aspects of eve-
ryday life, whether it be government, market forces, art, or social con-
structs. In many instances these movements overlap or are coopted and
reformed as an evolutionary continuum—a process characteristic of the
10 K.L. SHONK AND D.R. McCLURE

era of mass culture. Moreover, agents of alternativity often look to past


movements for inspiration on how to construct, or reconstruct, a trans-
gressive idiom that both defines and validates their movement. In this
sense, alternativity has a Janus-like approach to past, present, and future,
finding agency in both its novelty and its continuity of certain aspects
of the culture that it seeks to critique. Cultural critic Raymond Williams
describes this in his definition of structures of feeling: residual culture,
drawn from the past but still in circulation as tradition or “the old
ways of doing things”; the dominant culture which characterizes main-
stream practice, including a mix of elements from the past; and, finally,
the emergent culture characterized as new forms of expression, devel-
oped out of the dominant and residual, and which act as Attali’s herald,
the musical prophets of futures sounds.14 In their thirst for expression,
most artistic movements negotiate these dynamics of tradition, status
quo, and innovation. One need only to look at the Cahiers du Cinéma
that heralded the beginning of La Nouvelle Vague.15 The French New
Wave did not seek to destroy film, or to undermine the notion of film as
commodity. Instead, such filmmakers as Jean-Luc Godard and François
Truffaut, among many others, rebelled within the medium of cinema by
putting onto celluloid a critique of modern society—if not modernity
en toto—that was informed by academic and artistic forces. In doing so,
they sought to offer an alternative understanding of film—that is, a cin-
ema that was more humanist, more democratic (in the literal sense), and
less ephemeral than what was emerging from major studios throughout
the West. Aesthetically and artistically, La Nouvelle Vague was informed
by the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, the Marxist historians of the
French académie, as well as the non-conformist auteurs of global cinema.
This convergence of the intellectual and the artistic was the same for the
musicians explored in this book.
Dissatisfaction with the convention of the mainstream and its effect
of alienation upon the artist drives alternativity. This alienation fuels a
desire to withdraw from elements of mainstream society deemed cor-
rupted, or sometimes even presses for a change in societal norms.
Alternativity also finds birth as a voice for the previously voiceless, broad-
casting sounds from the hearts and minds of the descendants of enslaved
people, echoing across an ocean towards the descendants of slave own-
ers. Sometimes these centuries-in-the-making reactions offer a futur-
ist view of what society could—if not should—become. Alternativity
is rebellion but not revolution: rebellion as a means of education or
1 INTRODUCTION: THE PROCESS AND PEDAGOGY OF HISTORICAL THEORY 11

elucidation; rebellion as a means of constructing alternative cultural


frameworks; rebellion that unsettles mainstream assumptions, some-
times—but not always—becoming the new framework for mainstream
culture as older trends run their course. Often born out of marginali-
zation and limited access to capital and resources, alternative sometimes
translates to “do it yourself” reform movements operating outside the
infrastructure of the mainstream. Depending on its embrace by audi-
ences, these forms sometimes become the basis for reforms of the very
infrastructure it was separated from. While La Nouvelle Vague was a reac-
tion to the hegemony of the Hollywood studio system and its British,
French, and Italian acolytes, not to mention the hardening of clichéd
cinematic genres, the various facets of alternative music were a response
to or result of that which came before it. Just as the study of the French
New Wave reveals much about the socio-cultural and economic contexts
of the 1950s and 1960s West, the study of alternative music between
1970 and 2000 reveals many of the same forces at work in the Atlantic
West. Historical alternativity represents an important insight to ways the
pubic and hidden transcripts circulating through society complicate the
sets of processes both operating within the decades under discussion as
well as across hundreds of years.16
Accordingly, we understand alternative music as moments of stylistic
transgression, the instant—ranging from months to a few years—when a
style of music breaks off from its origin point and enacts a new style oper-
ating in a dialectic with its forbearer. The shift can be an explicit critique—
such as punk—or a completely new avenue towards expression—such as
hip-hop, which utilized soul, funk, and disco as building blocks. However
revolutionary these moments are, they often serve as foundations for new
mainstream expressions; or, mainstream culture eventually incorporates
the “alternative” aspects of music into its repertoire. For example, the
rhythms and sonic aesthetic of reggae were appropriated by artists rang-
ing from Eric Clapton to the Eagles to Steely Dan to the post-punk/new
wave stars, The Police. If Madonna was shocking in the early 1980s, she is
now largely seen as a nostalgia artist despite being presented as the baseline
for new acts pressing the boundaries of female sexual expression. Finally,
the transgender identities so scandalous in the 1970s are now precedents
to the latest struggle for civil rights among the LGBTQ community. Put
simply, the cultural transgressions of the alternative era have empowered
generations of artists who seek to critique the mainstream. Unfortunately,
12 K.L. SHONK AND D.R. McCLURE

for reasons discussed later, artists of this ilk are far less prevalent than they
were in the era between 1970 and 2000.

Pedagogy
This book does not intend to be either a definitive or an authoritative
history of each aspect of alternative music. In this regard, some read-
ers might be tempted to point out any number of artists that do not
appear below, and we certainly recognize the fact that we exclude more
artists than we include. Nonetheless, our intent is to create a starting
point for viewing the alternative era as a cohesive whole, in turn mov-
ing away from the atomized and specialized studies that tend to view
any number of sub-genres of alternative rock as an insular “movement”
unencumbered by historical forces. Indeed, the work at hand seeks to
situate and contextualize alternative music within the long- and short-
term historical processes forging the very socio-economic and political
frameworks from which these sub-genres—if not movements—emerged.
In this regard, this book is meant to be a starting point from which to
reassess and recontextualize alternative music as reflective of histori-
cal phenomena. General histories of alternative music are usually rel-
egated to a single chapter in narrative-based histories of rock and roll.
Moreover, such chapters tend to construct alternative music as a syno-
nym for “College” or “Indie/DIY” rock from which Black Flag begat
R.E.M. who begat Sonic Youth who begat Nirvana. Rather than taking a
chronicle approach to the story of popular music’s alternative moments,
we embrace a more systematic approach, rooting changes and innova-
tions in music to previous musical efforts as well as larger changes in the
socio-economic realm of the artists. Thus, post-punk, hip-hop, and reg-
gae share a kinship with shared interests in recording technology, critical
rhetoric on contemporary politics, and the embrace of hybrid expres-
sions pulling together layers of artistic influences across the Anglo-Black
Atlantic and beyond.
In addition to being a history of the alternative era, this book has a
pedagogical purpose, which is to use the “language” of popular music
to introduce readers to a selection of significant and useful theoreti-
cal approaches to historical inquiry. Works on historical theory tend to
present these approaches in an esoteric way so readers must struggle to
learn both the historical theory and the historical context in which they
are presented. As such, these works tend to be esoteric and inaccessible
1 INTRODUCTION: THE PROCESS AND PEDAGOGY OF HISTORICAL THEORY 13

for undergraduate and graduate students of history. Additionally, these


works can be written from a perspective of being authoritative works,
in which the mere act of reading inhibits deeper discussion. Our intent
here is to situate historical theory in such a manner that the chapters that
follow will foster and encourage discussion. Put another way, the book
is meant to be a starting point for conversations regarding the efficacy,
value, and strengths—or limitations—of using a particular historical
lens. We envisage readers—both student and faculty—to ask and answer:
What types of sources are employed in each chapter? How are these
sources different to those applied in other chapters? What is the value—
and what are the limitations—of looking at the past through a theoreti-
cal perspective? Thus, we envisage readers using this book to construct a
functional understanding of historical theory through individual reflec-
tion, classroom discussion, and application in their own writing. Such is
based on a constructivist pedagogy rooted in dialogue, disagreement and
consensus, and intellectual interaction with the material at hand.
We have opted to structure the book in a somewhat fluid manner,
where periodization and theme intersect and diverge. In some ways, this
might work to contradict our intention to create a general work on the
history of the alternative era. Nonetheless, the reader will find that many
of the same artists appear in several chapters. For example, the band L7
is presented in one chapter as agents of a larger anti-hegemonic effort by
1980s and 1990s alternative bands as well as being seminal in the for-
mation of Riot Grrrl. Though divided into distinct chapters, we hope
that the reader will be able to see and understand the intersectionality
inherent to the alternative era. By consciously discussing certain artists in
several chapters, we hope to create a multi-leveled, interconnected work
that provides a conceptual map for tracking the many elements of alter-
native music between the 1970s and 2000.

Prelude to the Alternative: Thinking About Modernity,


the Longue Durée, and Ontology

Before moving on to the first case study, a broader discussion on the


macro or big picture concepts contextualizing Historical Theory and
Methods through Popular Music, 1970–2000 is needed. Alternative music
operates within and is responding to the historically deeper, world-his-
torical longue durée framework of modernity and its ontological lega-
cies. The processes of modernity comprising the crucial anchors binding
14 K.L. SHONK AND D.R. McCLURE

together the chapters include: colonialism, the Atlantic Slave system,


capitalism, the Enlightenment, the nation-state (or nationalism), and
imperialism.17 From these processes emerged the assortment of systems,
structures, and ideas arising after the 1400s, as well as their defining leg-
acies that have shaped the direction of dominant cultural and economic
institutions and discourse circulating throughout the world. Far from
static structures, the processes of modernity evolved—and evolve—in
tandem with the needs and realities of their historical agents and their
institutions. Moreover, modernity involves the reactions to these needs
and realities as well, including the actions of those struggling against
modernity’s violence.18
As core elements of modernity, colonialism and slavery inform the
case study of reggae music. As a process initiated by the Spanish and
Portuguese—with Genoese capital—exploration of the Atlantic Ocean,
colonialism embodies the action of these nations—and their European
successors—in their appropriation of land, people, and resources char-
acterizing European expansion after the mid-1400s. In the New World,
this included the appropriation of the Caribbean islands and later the
American continents from indigenous peoples. For Jamaicans of African
descent playing reggae, these years saw the introduction of enslaved peo-
ples from Africa (primarily Africans from the Gold Coast and the Bight of
Biafra).19 The experience of colonialism and its connection to the Atlantic
slave system formed the baseline of experience constructing the language
and knowledge of modernity. From the collision of colonialism and slav-
ery emerged the space and source of labor for the proto-industrial factory
system of sugarcane plantations and the rise of capitalism.20 Knowledge
of the world expanded as other European peoples entered this newly col-
onized global arena—as merchants, sailors, pirates, and privateers—with
each report, travel narrative, investment, and conquered people leading
to further expansion, and an increasingly complex set of knowledge defin-
ing the structures of colonialism, slavery, and capitalism and the people
these processes now controlled via European globalization. This accumu-
lation of knowledged formed the baseline of Enlightenment thought. The
entwining of modernity’s processes and knowledge creation helped shape
the ideas of race, gender, sexuality, and class explored in Historical Theory
and Methods through Popular Music, 1970–2000.
Within the Anglo-Black Atlantic, ideas of masculinity and feminin-
ity were shaped through the power relationships between the colonizers
and the colonized, the free and the enslaved, the male and the female,
1 INTRODUCTION: THE PROCESS AND PEDAGOGY OF HISTORICAL THEORY 15

and the all-male, patriarchal space reserved for what Sven Beckert calls
“war capitalism.”21 Masculinity defined the default moniker, “man,”
anchoring the colorblind phrase “all men are created equal” that in prac-
tice only applied to men of European descent. Indeed, the construc-
tion of gender and sexuality out of the processes of modernity utilized
the experience of colonialism and slavery to stabilize meanings of white
womanhood, with enslaved women of African descent anchoring this pil-
lar of civilization. Black women (along with other women of color) were
described as ugly, hypersexual, strong, and able to work, while white
women were defined as beautiful, pure, vulnerable, and domestic (a
“lady” should never work outside the home).22 These constructions were
defined through the default prism of the patriarchal Eurocentric expres-
sions of the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was the set of thoughts
and philosophy born at the dawn of the sugar era of capitalism between
the early 1600s and the late 1700s.23 Dividends from the Atlantic slave
system—particularly the Royal Africa Company—paid the bills for some
Enlightenment thinkers, while the deeper ideas about humanity and race
arose from the experience and need to justify the Atlantic slave system
and colonialism. From the Atlantic slave system, the binary of freedom
and slavery rooted ideas of whiteness and blackness, while the relation-
ship between colonizers and the colonized formed the base ideas of
civilized and savagery—and, thus, strengthened the need for a strong
patriarchal society able to defend women and children (particularly in
settler societies such as in the United States).
The outcome assumed that the true agents of history, of progress and
civilization, belonged to those of Northern European “stock”: those
who became “white” against the “objects” of history, people of African
descent or natives. Moreover, the Enlightenment found its material base
among those organizing and profiting from European expansion, coloni-
alism, capitalism, and the Atlantic slave system: the European bourgeoisie.
The masculinity questioned in Chap. 3 found its root amidst this fallout,
where ideas like “individualism,” “rights of man,” and “rights of prop-
erty” were thoroughly the domain of European men, while the possession
of women and control over enslaved or colonized peoples existed as an
unquestioned prerogative.24 Consequently, nation-states comprised of the
representatives of capital slowly emerged out of older kingdoms rooted in
the landed elite and aristocracy of feudal Europe. The nation-state pro-
vided a more efficient organization of society that could operate interna-
tionally, enforcing contracts and trade agreements, international relations,
16 K.L. SHONK AND D.R. McCLURE

and using the power of the nation-state to go to war. From the ideas of
Enlightenment thinkers, nation-states also created laws regulating the
enslavement of Africans, the status of free blacks and indigenous peoples,
and the rights of women—all determined through the normalization of
the privileged and entitled status of white, propertied masculinity.
Accordingly, the contemporary ideas circulating through Historical
Theory and Methods through Popular Music, 1970–2000 about race, gender,
sexuality, and class evolved from these centuries-old processes, weaving
their way through mainstream society and alternative voices along the mar-
gins. For example, the burdens of blackness cultivated from colonialism
and slavery created an afterlife of slavery, where imperilment and devalu-
ation wrought by the “racial calculus and… political arithmetic” of the
Atlantic slave system engineered the ontology of anti-blackness and ongo-
ing racial antagonism.25 Most reggae and hip-hop artists create and cre-
ated their music through this coding of human beings. The nation-state,
in turn, would define black people as not citizens—in the United States
this took until the 1960s to rectify, despite the Fourteenth Amendment
in 1868. Indigenous peoples, Chicanos/as, and other non-white, non-
European peoples were also categorized as second-class citizens up to and
through the 1960s. The alternative music era, in many ways, expresses
this momentous shift after centuries of modernity created interwoven lay-
ers of oppression with Europeans—or white people—defined as divinely
ordained and naturally occupying the top of the social-economic hierar-
chy. As people of color gained an even greater expressive voice in popular
culture after the upheavals of the 1960s, the 1970s literally became the
first decade in the history of the United States when white men, espe-
cially white men with property, were forced legislatively to share politi-
cal and economic opportunities with everyone else—particularly half the
population: women. As popular music took shape in the twentieth cen-
tury, women’s roles were largely constricted to singing or dancing or being
the object—literally—of men’s frustration or sexual conquest. While a
few marginal examples existed in the 1960s and before, from the 1970s
through to the end of the century women picked up guitars, basses, and
drums and created music within a space previously reserved for men.
These intersectional qualities of modernity found shape and evolved over
the centuries following the 1500s, periodically shifting language according
to the political and economic needs of the era. To foreground the various
artists associated with alternative music within their appropriate trajecto-
ries of modernity, another concept is needed to provide the historian with
1 INTRODUCTION: THE PROCESS AND PEDAGOGY OF HISTORICAL THEORY 17

the appropriate language to describe changes across centuries: the longue


durée.
Historian Fernand Braudel’s (1902–1985) framework of the longue
durée conceptualizes decades under study within long-term structures
of thought, sets of policies, and the material outcomes engineered out
of these processes.26 Working through the framework of the French
Annales school, Braudel’s approach sets the history of events—histoire
événementielle—into a larger network: one encompassing an analysis
of history across centuries, noting economic, cultural, and even envi-
ronmental changes which occur or change slowly, often imperceptibly,
over time.27 The longue durée spurs important sets of questions: How
might the meaning of events alter when contextualized within a centu-
ries-spanning context? What patterns emerge when large timeframes and
their dominant patterns are placed in dialogue with more brief historical
moments or events? Or, to ask the inverse question: What patterns would
be obscured if events were not contextualized within larger timeframes?
“Mental frameworks” operating through the longue durée include “all
the old habits of thinking and acting, the set patterns which do not
break down easily and which, however illogical, are a long time dying.”28
These patterns range from ideology (the system of ideals, ideas, and
theories which relate to the organization of politics, economics, culture,
or society) to ontology—the final concept helping us to set alternative
music within the big picture of modernity.
Ontology literally means the essence of being. While most students
are familiar with ideology—e.g., the communist ideology, the fascist
ideology, and free-market ideology—students are less familiar with the
notion of ontology. Placing historical texts within an ontological frame-
work is essential for historians trying to understand the deep, longue
durée relationships between structure and agency.29 Alun Munslow
describes ontology as “that branch of metaphysics that addresses the
general state of being, the nature of existence, and how the human mind
apprehends, comprehends, judges, categorises, makes assumptions about
and constructs reality.”30 It is vital historians understand ontology, as this
understanding helps them comprehend how their own life experience,
their positionality—race, gender, sexuality, class—informs the way they
interpret texts or reality through their own naturalized language and
knowledge. To understand the workings of ontology through historical
theory helps one become self-conscious of one’s own biases and blind
spots. In short, we are all creatures of sets of ontology emanating from
18 K.L. SHONK AND D.R. McCLURE

modernity. Accordingly, ontology and its slow-moving features relate to


the slow-moving features inherent in the longue durée.
An additional layer of understanding for the longue durée and ontol-
ogy is David Armitage’s transtemporal history. This includes comparisons
and linkages across history, bound to “the mechanisms of connection
between moments and… how ideas travelled materially and institution-
ally across time.”31 As Armitage suggests, from this vantage point we
may explore a “history in ideas”—rather than history of ideas—where
the “focal points of arguments shaped and debated episodically across
time with a conscious—or at least a provable connection—with both ear-
lier and later instances of such struggles.”32 For popular music, we may
explore various moments that are also linked to agents dissociated from
popular music, but whose ideas and their array of meanings carry on a
dialogue with popular music. It is within these zones where we may also
decipher smaller organizing units within these exchanges and sequences
of language and knowledge, including tropes, discourse, or structures of
feeling.33 The tension between the short-term history of events—such as
eras of popular music—and longue durée processes elucidates the struc-
tural elements framing the agency and ideas of historical actors, while
highlighting how the actors’ agency influences the structures of his-
tory and vice versa. Thus, a valuable contribution of the longue durée
for historians includes the important question: How are zones of the
“unconscious or barely conscious elements” of thoughts, language, and
knowledge contextualized within sets of structures disciplined by the
agents’ very own cultural or economic rules?34 How might we string
together the genealogies of contemporary expressions within their deep
extensions to a centuries-old past? How does popular culture possess a
genealogy of inherited meanings, pressed together through the centuries
into a precisely packaged commodity, and circulated through the very
socio-economic system that fostered the very conditions directing this
genealogy?
The framework of modernity, the longue durée, and the concept of
ontology allows historians to set their primary sources within a big pic-
ture, where the agency of their texts (person, writings, objects, etc.) is
foregrounded against the larger context of various structures (coloni-
alism, capitalism, slavery, etc.). Moreover, this approach underscores
the reciprocal processes governing the relationship between structure
and agency, their historically deep motivational passions—their ontol-
ogy—and the facilitation of exchange, expression, and movement
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
definitely ascertained. It may be an assumption that time will prove to
be unwarranted that all the Leptomedusae pass through a
Calyptoblastic hydrosome stage.

Fam. Aequoreidae.—In this family the hydrosome stage is not


known except in the genus Polycanna, in which it resembles a
Campanulariid. The sense-organs of the Medusae are statocysts.
The radial canals are very numerous, and the genital glands are in
the form of ropes of cells extending along the whole of their oral
surfaces. Aequorea is a fairly common genus, with a flattened
umbrella and a very rudimentary manubrium, which may attain a size
of 40 mm. in diameter.

Fam. Thaumantiidae.—The Medusae of this family are


distinguished from the Aequoreidae by having marginal ocelli in
place of statocysts. The hydrosome of Thaumantias alone is known,
and this is very similar to an Obelia.

Fam. Cannotidae.—The hydrosome is quite unknown. The


Medusae are ocellate, but the radial canals, instead of being
undivided, as in the Thaumantiidae, are four in number, and very
much ramified before reaching the ring canal. The tentacles are very
numerous. In the genus Polyorchis, from the Pacific coast of North
America, the four radial canals give rise to numerous lateral short
blind branches, and have therefore a remarkable pinnate
appearance.

Fam. Sertulariidae.—In this family the hydrothecae are sessile, and


arranged bilaterally on the stem and branches. The general form of
the colony is pinnate, the branches being usually on opposite sides
of the main stem. The gonophores are adelocodonic. Sertularia
forms more or less arborescent colonies, springing from a creeping
stolon attached to stones and shells. There are many species,
several of which are very common upon the British coast. Many
specimens are torn from their attachments by storms or by the trawls
of fishermen and cast up on the sand or beach with other zoophytes.
The popular name for one of the commonest species (S. abietina) is
the "sea-fir." The genus has a wide geographical and bathymetrical
range. Another common British species frequently thrown up by the
tide in great quantities is Hydrallmania falcata. It has slender spirally-
twisted stems and branches, and the hydrothecae are arranged
unilaterally.

The genus Grammaria, sometimes placed in a separate family, is


distinguished from Sertularia by several characters. The stem and
branches are composed of a number of tubes which are
considerably compressed. The genus is confined to the southern
seas.

Fam. Plumulariidae.—The hydrothecae are sessile, and arranged


in a single row on the stem and branches. Nematophores are always
present. Gonophores adelocodonic. This family is the largest and
most widely distributed of all the families of the Hydrozoa. Nutting
calculates that it contains more than one-fourth of all the Hydroids of
the world. Over 300 species have been described, and more than
half of these are found in the West Indian and Australian regions.
Representatives of the family occur in abundance in depths down to
300 fathoms, and not unfrequently to 500 fathoms. Only a few
species have occasionally been found in depths of over 1000
fathoms.

The presence of nematophores may be taken as the most


characteristic feature of the family, but similar structures are also
found in some species belonging to other families (p. 277).

The family is divided into two groups of genera, the Eleutheroplea


and the Statoplea. In the former the nematophores are mounted on
a slender pedicel, which admits of more or less movement, and in
the latter the nematophores are sessile. The genera Plumularia and
Antennularia belong to the Eleutheroplea. The former is a very large
genus, with several common British species, distinguished by the
terminal branches being pinnately disposed, and the latter,
represented by A. antennina and A. ramosa on the British coast, is
distinguished by the terminal branches being arranged in verticils.

The two most important genera of the Statoplea are Aglaophenia


and Cladocarpus. The former is represented by a few species in
European waters, the latter is only found in American waters.

Fam. Hydroceratinidae.—The colony consists of a mass of


entwined hydrorhiza, with a skeleton in the form of anastomosing
chitinous tubes. Hydrothecae scattered, tubular, and sessile.
Nematophores present. Gonophores probably adelocodonic.

This family was constituted for a remarkable hydroid, Clathrozoon


wilsoni, described by W. B. Spencer from Victoria.[317] The zooids
are sessile, and spring from more than one of the numerous
anastomosing tubes of the stem and branches. The whole of the
surface is studded with an enormous number of small and very
simple dactylozooids, protected by tubular nematophores. Only a
few specimens have hitherto been obtained, the largest being 10
inches in height by 4 inches in width. In general appearance it has
some resemblance to a dark coloured fan-shaped Gorgonia.

Fam. Campanulariidae.—The hydrothecae in this family are


pedunculate, and the gonophores adelocodonic.

In the cosmopolitan genus Campanularia the stem is monosiphonic,


and the hydrothecae bell-shaped. Several species of this genus are
very common in the rock pools of our coast between tide marks.
Halecium is characterised by the rudimentary character of its
hydrothecae, which are incapable of receiving the zooids even in
their maximum condition of retraction. The genus Lafoea is
remarkable for the development of a large number of tightly packed
gonothecae on the hydrorhiza, each of which contains a blastostyle,
bearing a single gonophore and, in the female, a single ovum. This
group of gonothecae was regarded as a distinct genus of Hydroids,
and was named Coppinia.[318] Lafoea dumosa with gonothecae of
the type described as Coppinia arcta occurs on the British coast.

Perisiphonia is an interesting genus from deep water off the Azores,


Australia, and New Zealand, with a stem composed of many distinct
tubes.

The genus Zygophylax, from 500 fathoms off the Cape Verde, is of
considerable interest in having a nematophore on each side of the
hydrotheca. According to Quelch it should be placed in a distinct
family.

Ophiodes has long and very active defensive zooids, protected by


nematophores. It is found in the Laminarian zone on the English
coast.

Fam. Eucopidae.—The hydrosome stage of this family is very


similar to that of the Campanulariidae, but the gonophores are free-
swimming Medusae of the Leptomedusan type.

One of the best-known genera is Obelia, of which several species


are among the commonest Hydroids of the British coast.

Clytia johnstoni is also a very common Hydroid, growing on red


algae or leaves of the weed Zostera. It consists of a number of
upright, simple, or slightly branched stems springing from a creeping
hydrorhiza. When liberated the Medusae are globular in form, with
four radial canals and four marginal tentacles, but this Medusa, like
many others of the order, undergoes considerable changes in form
before it reaches the sexually mature stage.

Phialidium temporarium is one of the commonest Medusae of our


coast, and sometimes occurs in shoals. It seems probable that it is
the Medusa of Clytia johnstoni.[319] By some authors the jelly-fish
known as Epenthesis is also believed to be the Medusa of a Clytia.

Fam. Dendrograptidae.—This family includes a number of fossils


which have certain distinct affinities with the Calyptoblastea. In
Dictyonema, common in the Ordovician rocks of Norway, but also
found in the Palaeozoic rocks of North America and elsewhere, the
fossil forms fan-shaped colonies of delicate filaments, united by
many transverse commissures, and in well-preserved specimens the
terminal branches bear well-marked uniserial hydrothecae. In some
species thecae of a different character, which have been interpreted
to be gonothecae and nematophores respectively, are found.

Other genera are Dendrograptus, Thamnograptus, and several


others from Silurian strata.

Order V. Graptolitoidea.
A large number of fossils, usually called Graptolites, occurring in
Palaeozoic strata, are generally regarded as the skeletal remains of
an ancient group of Hydrozoa.

In the simpler forms the fossil consists of a delicate straight rod


bearing on one side a series of small cups. It is suggested that the
cups contained hydroid zooids, and should therefore be regarded as
the equivalent of the hydrothecae, and that the axis represents the
axis of the colony or of a branch of the Calyptoblastea. In some of
the forms with two rows of cups on the axis (Diplograptus), however,
it has been shown that the cups are absent from a considerable
portion of one end of the axis, and that the axes of several radially
arranged individuals are fused together and united to a central
circular plate. Moreover, there is found in many specimens a series
of vesicles, a little larger in size than the cups, attached to the plate
and arranged in a circle at the base of the axes. These vesicles are
called the gonothecae.
The discovery of the central plate and of the so-called gonothecae
suggests that the usual comparison of a Graptolite with a Sertularian
Hydroid is erroneous, and that the colony or individual, when alive,
was a more or less radially symmetrical floating form, like a Medusa,
of which only the distal appendages (possibly tentacles) are
commonly preserved as fossils.

The evidence that the Graptolites were Hydrozoa is in reality very


slight, but the proof of their relationship to any other phylum of the
animal kingdom does not exist.[320] It is therefore convenient to
consider them in this place, and to regard them, provisionally, as
related to the Calyptoblastea.

The order is divided into three families.

Fam. 1. Monoprionidae.—Cups arranged uniserially on one side of


the axis.

The principal genera are Monograptus, with the axis straight, curved,
or helicoid, from many horizons in the Silurian strata; Rastrites, with
a spirally coiled axis, Silurian; Didymograptus, Ordovician; and
Coenograptus, Ordovician.

Fam. 2. Diprionidae.—Cups arranged in two or four vertical rows on


the axis.

Diplograptus, Ordovician and Silurian; Climacograptus, Ordovician


and Silurian; and Phyllograptus, in which the axis and cups are
arranged in such a manner that they resemble an ovate leaf.

Fam. 3. Retiolitidae.—Cups arranged biserially on a reticulate axis.

Retiolites, Ordovician and Silurian; Stomatograptus, Retiograptus,


and Glossograptus, Ordovician.
Fossil Corals possibly allied to Hydrozoa.
Among the many fossil corals that are usually classified with the
Hydrozoa the genus Porosphaera is of interest as it is often
supposed to be related to Millepora. It consists of globular masses
about 10-20 mm. in diameter occurring in the Upper Cretaceous
strata. In the centre there is usually a foreign body around which the
coral was formed by concentric encrusting growth. Running radially
from pores on the surface to the centre, there are numerous tubules
which have a certain general resemblance to the pore-tubes of
Millepora. The monomorphic character of these tubes, their very
minute size, the absence of ampullae, and the general texture of the
corallum, are characters which separate this fossil very distinctly
from any recent Hydroid corals. Porosphaera, therefore, was
probably not a Hydrozoon, and certainly not related to the recent
Millepora.

Closely related to Porosphaera apparently are other globular,


ellipsoidal, or fusiform corals from various strata, such as Loftusia
from the Eocene of Persia, Parkeria from the Cambridge Greensand,
and Heterastridium from the Alpine Trias. In the last named there is
apparently a dimorphism of the radial tubes.

Allied to these genera, again, but occurring in the form of thick,


concentric, calcareous lamellae, are the genera Ellipsactinia and
Sphaeractinia from the Upper Jurassic.

Another important series of fossil corals is that of the family


Stromatoporidae. These fossils are found in great beds of immense
extent in many of the Palaeozoic rocks, and must have played an
important part in the geological processes of that period. They
consist of a series of calcareous lamellae, separated by considerable
intervals, encrusting foreign bodies of various kinds. Sometimes they
are flat and plate-like, sometimes globular or nodular in form. The
lamellae are in some cases perforated by tabulate, vertical, or radial
pores, but in many others these pores are absent. The zoological
position of the Stromatoporidae is very uncertain, but there is not at
present any very conclusive evidence that they are Hydrozoa.

Stromatopora is common in Devonian and also occurs in Silurian


strata. Cannopora from the Devonian has well-marked tabulate
pores, and is often found associated commensally with another coral
(Aulopora or Syringopora).

Order VI. Stylasterina.


The genera included in this order resemble Millepora in producing a
massive calcareous skeleton, and in showing a consistent
dimorphism of the zooids, but in many respects they exhibit great
divergence from the characters of the Milleporina.

The colony is arborescent in growth, the branches arising frequently


only in one plane, forming a flabellum. The calcareous skeleton is
perforated to a considerable depth by the gastrozooids,
dactylozooids, and nutritive canals, and the gastropores and
dactylopores are not provided with tabulae except in the genera
Pliobothrus and Sporadopora. The character which gives the order
its name is a conical, sometimes torch-like projection at the base of
the gastropore, called the "style," which carries a fold of the
ectoderm and endoderm layers of the body-wall, and may serve to
increase the absorptive surface of the digestive cavity. In some
genera a style is also present in the dactylopore, in which case it
serves as an additional surface for the attachment of the retractor
muscles. The pores are scattered on all aspects of the coral in the
genera Sporadopora, Errina, and Pliobothrus; in Spinipora and
Steganopora the scattered dactylopores are situated at the
extremities of tubular spines which project from the general surface
of the coral, the gastropores being situated irregularly between the
spines. In Phalangopora the pores are arranged in regular
longitudinal lines, and in Distichopora they are mainly in rows on the
edges of the flattened branches, a single row of gastropores being
flanked by a single row of dactylopores on each side. In the
remaining genera the pores are arranged in definite cycles, which
are frequently separated from one another by considerable intervals,
and have, particularly in the dried skeleton, a certain resemblance to
the calices of some of the Zoantharian corals.

In Cryptohelia the cycles are covered by a lid-like projection from the


neighbouring coenenchym (Fig. 136, l 1, l 2). The gastrozooids are
short, and are usually provided with a variable number of small
capitate tentacles. The dactylozooids are filiform and devoid of
tentacles, the endoderm of their axes being solid and scalariform.

The gonophores of the Stylasterina are situated in large oval or


spherical cavities called the ampullae, and their presence can
generally be detected by the dome-shaped projections they form on
the surface of the coral. The female gonophore consists of a saucer-
shaped pad of folded endoderm called the "trophodisc," which
serves the purpose of nourishing the single large yolk-laden egg it
bears; and a thin enveloping membrane composed of at least two
layers of cells. The egg is fertilised while it is still within the ampulla,
and does not escape to the exterior until it has reached the stage of
a solid ciliated larva. All the Stylasterina are therefore viviparous.
The male gonophore has a very much smaller trophodisc, which is
sometimes (Allopora) prolonged into a columnar process or spadix,
penetrating the greater part of the gonad. The spermatozoa escape
through a peculiar spout-like duct which perforates the superficial
wall of the ampulla. In some genera (Distichopora) there are several
male gonophores in each ampulla.

The gonophores of the Stylasterina have been regarded as much


altered medusiform gonophores, and this view may possibly prove to
be correct. At present, however, the evidence of their derivation from
Medusae is not conclusive, and it is possible that they may have had
a totally independent origin.

Distichopora and some species of Stylaster are found in shallow


water in the tropics, but most of the genera are confined to deep or
very deep water, and have a wide geographical distribution. No
species have been found hitherto within the British area.

Fig. 136.—A portion of a branch of Cryptohelia ramosa, showing the lids l 1 and l
2 covering the cyclosystems, the swellings produced by the ampullae in the
lids amp1, amp2, and the dactylozooids, dac. × 22. (After Hickson and
England.)

A few specimens of a species of Stylaster have been found in


Tertiary deposits and in some raised beaches of more recent origin,
but the order is not represented in the older strata.

Fam. Stylasteridae.—All the genera at present known are included


in this family.

Sporadopora is the only genus that presents a superficial general


resemblance to Millepora. It forms massive, branching white coralla,
with the pores scattered irregularly on the surface, and, like many
varieties of Millepora, not arranged in cyclosystems. It may, however,
be distinguished at once by the presence of a long, brush-like style
in each of the gastropores. The ampullae are large, but are usually
so deep-seated in the coenenchym that their presence cannot be
detected from the surface. It was found off the Rio de la Plata in 600
fathoms of water by the "Challenger."

In Errina the pores are sometimes irregularly scattered, but in E.


glabra they are arranged in rows on the sides of the branches, while
in E. ramosa the gastropores occur at the angles of the branches
only. The dactylopores are situated on nariform projections of the
corallum. The ampullae are prominent. There are several
gonophores in each ampulla of the male, but only one in each
ampulla of the female. This genus is very widely distributed in water
from 100 to 500 fathoms in depth.

Phalangopora differs from Errina in the absence of a style in the


gastropore; Mauritius.—Pliobothrus has also no style in the
gastropore, and is found in 100-600 fathoms of water off the
American Atlantic shores.

Distichopora is an important genus, which is found in nearly all the


shallow seas of the tropical and semi-tropical parts of the world, and
may even flourish in rock pools between tide marks. It is nearly
always brightly coloured—purple, violet, pale brown, or rose red. The
colony usually forms a small flabellum, with anastomosing branches,
and the pores are arranged in three rows, a middle row of
gastropores and two lateral rows of dactylopores on the sides of the
branches. There is a long style in each gastropore. The ampullae are
numerous and prominent, situated on the anterior and posterior
faces of the branches. Each ampulla contains a single gonophore in
the female colony and two or three gonophores in the male colony.

Spinipora is a rare genus from off the Rio de la Plata in 600 fathoms.
The branches are covered with blunt spines. These spines have a
short gutter-like groove at the apex, which leads into a dactylopore.
The gastropores are provided with a style and are situated between
the spines.

Steganopora[321] from the Djilolo Passage, in about 600 fathoms, is


very similar to Spinipora as regards external features, but differs
from it in the absence of styles in the gastropores, and in the wide
communications between the gastropores and dactylopores.

Stylaster is the largest and most widely distributed genus of the


family, and exhibits a considerable range of structure in the many
species it contains. It is found in all the warmer seas of the world,
living between tide marks at a few fathoms, and extending to depths
of 600 fathoms. Many specimens, but especially those from very
shallow water, are of a beautiful rose or pink colour. The corallum is
arborescent and usually flabelliform. The pores are distributed in
regular cyclosystems, sometimes on one face of the corallum only,
sometimes on the sides of the branches, and sometimes evenly
distributed. There are styles in both gastropores and dactylopores.

Allopora is difficult to separate from Stylaster, but the species are


usually more robust in habit, and the ampullae are not so prominent
as they are on the more delicate branches of Stylaster. It occurs at
depths of 100 fathoms in the Norwegian fjords. A very large red
species (A. nobilis) occurs in False Bay, Cape of Good Hope, in 30
fathoms of water. In this locality the coral occurs in great submarine
beds or forests, and the trawl that is passed over them is torn to
pieces by the hard, thick branches, some of which are an inch or
more in diameter.

Astylus is a genus found in the southern Philippine sea in 500


fathoms of water. It is distinguished from Stylaster by the absence of
a style in the gastropore.

Cryptohelia is an interesting genus found both in the Atlantic and


Pacific Oceans at depths of from 270 to about 600 fathoms. The
cyclosystems are covered by a projecting lid or operculum (Fig. 136,
l 1, l 2). There are no styles in either the gastropores or the
dactylopores. The ampullae are prominent, and are sometimes
situated in the lids. There are several gonophores in each ampulla of
the female colony, and a great many in the ampulla of the male
colony.

CHAPTER XI
HYDROZOA (CONTINUED): TRACHOMEDUSAE—NARCOMEDUSAE—
SIPHONOPHORA

Order VII. Trachomedusae.


The orders Trachomedusae and Narcomedusae are probably closely
related to one another and to some of the families of Medusae at
present included in the order Calyptoblastea, and it seems probable
that when the life-histories of a few more genera are made known
the three orders will be united into one. Very little is known of the
hydrosome stage of the Trachomedusae, but Brooks[322] has shown
that in Liriope, and Murbach[323] that in Gonionema, the fertilised
ovum gives rise to a Hydra-like form, and in the latter this exhibits a
process of reproduction by gemmation before it gives rise to
Medusae. Any general statement, therefore, to the effect that the
development of the Trachomedusae is direct would be incorrect. The
fact that the hydrosomes already known are epizoic or free-
swimming does not afford a character of importance for distinction
from the Leptomedusae, for it is quite possible that in this order of
Medusae the hydrosomes of many genera may be similar in form
and habits to those of Liriope and Gonionema.

The free border of the umbrella of the Trachomedusae is entire; that


is to say, it is not lobed or fringed as it is in the Narcomedusae. The
sense-organs are statocysts, each consisting of a vesicle formed by
a more or less complete fold of the surrounding wall of the margin of
the umbrella, containing a reduced clapper-like tentacle loaded at its
extremity with a statolith.
Fig. 137.—Liriope rosacea, one of the Geryoniidae, from the west side of North
and Central America. Size, 15-20 mm. Colour, rose. cp, Centripetal canal;
gon, gonad; M, mouth at the end of a long manubrium; ot, statocyst; t,
tentacle; to, tongue. (After Maas.)

This statocyst is innervated by the outer nerve ring. There appears to


be a very marked difference between these marginal sense-organs
in some of the best-known examples of Trachomedusae and the
corresponding organs of the Leptomedusae. The absence of a stalk
supporting the statolith and the innervation of the otocyst by the
inner instead of by the outer nerve ring in the Leptomedusae form
characters that may be of supplementary value, but cannot be
regarded as absolutely distinguishing the two orders. The statorhab
of the Trachomedusae is probably the more primitive of the two
types, and represents a marginal tentacle of the umbrella reduced in
size, loaded with a statolith and enclosed by the mesogloea.
Intermediate stages between this type and an ordinary tentacle have
already been discovered and described. In the type that is usually
found in the Leptomedusae the modified tentacle is still further
reduced, and all that can be recognised of it is the statolith attached
to the wall of the statocyst, but intermediate stages between the two
types are seen in the family Olindiidae, in which the stalk supporting
the statolith passes gradually into the tissue surrounding the statolith
on the one hand and the vesicle wall on the other. The radial canals
are four or eight in number or more numerous. They communicate at
the margin of the umbrella with a ring canal from which a number of
short blind tubes run in the umbrella-wall towards the centre of the
Medusa (Fig. 137, cp). These "centripetal canals" are subject to
considerable variation, but are useful characters in distinguishing the
Trachomedusae from the Leptomedusae. The tentacles are situated
on the margin of the umbrella, and are four or eight in number or, in
some cases, more numerous. The gonads are situated as in
Leptomedusae on the sub-umbrella aspect of the radial canals.

In Gonionema murbachii the fertilised eggs give rise to a free-


swimming ciliated larva of an oval shape with one pole longer and
narrower than the other. The mouth appears subsequently at the
narrower pole. The larva settles down upon the broader pole, the
mouth appears at the free extremity, and in a few days two, and later
two more, tentacles are formed (Fig. 138).

At this stage the larva may be said to be Hydra-like in character, and


as shown in Fig. 138 it feeds and lives an independent existence.
From its body-wall buds arise which separate from the parent and
give rise to similar Hydra-like individuals. An asexual generation thus
gives rise to new individuals by gemmation as in the hydrosome of
the Calyptoblastea. The origin of the Medusae from this Hydra-like
stage has not been satisfactorily determined, but it seems probable
that by a process of metamorphosis the hydriform persons are
directly changed into the Medusae.[324]

Fig. 138.—Hydra-like stage in the development of Gonionema murbachii. One of


the tentacles is carrying a worm (W) to the mouth. The tentacles are shown
very much contracted, but they are capable of extending to a length of 2
mm. Height of zooid about 1 mm. (After Perkins.)
In the development of Liriope the free-swimming larva develops into
a hydriform person with four tentacles and an enormously elongated
hypostome or manubrium; and, according to Brooks, it undergoes a
metamorphosis which directly converts it into a Medusa.

There can be very little doubt that in a large number of


Trachomedusae the development is direct, the fertilised ovum giving
rise to a medusome without the intervention of a hydrosome stage.
In some cases, however (Geryonia, etc.), the tentacles appear in
development before there is any trace of a sub-umbrella cavity, and
this has been interpreted to be a transitory but definite Hydroid
stage. It may be supposed that the elimination of the hydrosome
stage in these Coelenterates may be associated with their
adaptation to a life in the ocean far from the coast.

During the growth of the Medusa from the younger to the adult
stages several changes probably occur of a not unimportant
character, and it may prove that several genera now placed in the
same or even different families are stages in the development, of the
same species. In the development of Liriantha appendiculata,[325] for
example, four interradial tentacles appear in the first stage which
disappear and are replaced by four radial tentacles in the second
stage.

As with many other groups of free-swimming marine animals the


Trachomedusae have a very wide geographical distribution, and
some genera may prove to be almost cosmopolitan, but the majority
of the species appear to be characteristic of the warmer regions of
the high seas. Sometimes they are found at the surface, but more
usually they swim at a depth of a few fathoms to a hundred or more
from the surface. The Pectyllidae appear to be confined to the
bottom of the sea at great depths.

The principal families of the Trachomedusae are:—


Fam. Olindiidae.—This family appears to be structurally and in
development most closely related to the Leptomedusae, and is
indeed regarded by Goto[326] as closely related to the Eucopidae in
that order. They have two sets of tentacles, velar and exumbrellar;
the statocysts are numerous, two on each side of the exumbrellar
tentacles. Radial canals four or six. Manubrium well developed and
quadrate, with distinct lips. There is an adhesive disc on each
exumbrellar tentacle.

Genera: Olindias, Olindioides, Gonionema (Fig. 139), and Halicalyx.

As in other families of Medusae the distribution of the genera is very


wide. Olindias mülleri occurs in the Mediterranean, Olindioides
formosa off the coast of Japan, Gonionema murbachii is found in
abundance in the eel pond at Wood's Holl, United States of America,
and Halicalyx off Florida.

Two genera may be referred to in this place, although their


systematic position in relation to each other and to other Medusae
has not been satisfactorily determined.

Fig. 139.—Gonionema murbachii. Adult Medusa, shown inverted, and clinging to


the bottom. Nat. size. (After Perkins.)

Limnocodium sowerbyi is a small Medusa that was first discovered in


the Victoria regia tanks in the Botanic Gardens, Regent's Park,
London, in the year 1880. It has lately made its appearance in the
Victoria regia tank in the Parc de la Bête d'Or at Lyons.[327] As it
was, at the time of its discovery, the only fresh-water jelly-fish known,
it excited considerable interest, and this interest was not diminished
when the peculiarities of its structure were described by Lankester
and others. It has a rather flattened umbrella, with entire margin and
numerous marginal tentacles, the manubrium is long, quadrate, and
has four distinct lips. There are four radial canals, and the male
gonads (all the specimens discovered were of the male sex) are sac-
like bodies on the sub-umbrellar aspect of the middle points of the
four radial canals. In these characters the genus shows general
affinities with the Olindiidae. The difficult question of the origin of the
statoliths from the primary germ layers of the embryo and some
other points in the minute anatomy of the Medusa have suggested
the view that Limnocodium is not properly placed in any of the other
orders. Goto,[328] however, in a recent paper, confirms the view of
the affinities of Limnocodium with the Olindiidae.

The life-history of Limnocodium is not known, but a curious Hydroid


form attached to Pontederia roots was found in the same tank as the
Medusae, and this in all probability represents the hydrosome stage
of its development. The Medusae are formed apparently by a
process of transverse fission of the Hydroid stock[329] similar in
some respects to that observed in the production of certain
Acraspedote Medusae. This is quite unlike the asexual mode of
formation of Medusae in any other Craspedote form. The structure of
this hydrosome is, moreover, very different to that of any other
Hydroid, and consequently the relations of the genus with the
Trachomedusae cannot be regarded as very close.

Limnocodium has only been found in the somewhat artificial


conditions of the tanks in botanical gardens, and its native locality is
not known, but its association with the Victoria regia water-lily seems
to indicate that its home is in tropical South America.
Limnocnida tanganyicae is another remarkable fresh-water Medusa,
about seven-eights of an inch in diameter, found in the lakes
Tanganyika and Victoria Nyanza of Central Africa.[330] It differs from
Limnocodium in having a short collar-like manubrium with a large
round mouth two-thirds the diameter of the umbrella, and in several
other not unimportant particulars. It produces in May and June a
large number of Medusa-buds by gemmation on the manubrium, and
in August and September the sexual organs are formed in the same
situation.

Fig. 140.—Limnocnida tanganyicae. × 2. (After Günther.)

The fixed hydrosome stage, if such a stage occurs in the life-history,


has not been discovered; but Mr. Moore[331] believes that the
development is direct from ciliated planulae to the Medusae. The
occurrence of Limnocnida in Lake Tanganyika is supposed by the
same authority to afford a strong support to the view that this lake
represents the remnants of a sea which in Jurassic times spread
over part of the African continent. This theory has, however, been
adversely criticised from several sides.[332]

The character of the manubrium and the position of the sexual cells
suggest that Limnocnida has affinities with the Narcomedusae or
Anthomedusae, but the marginal sense-organs and the number and
position of the tentacles, showing considerable similarity with those
of Limnocodium, justify the more convenient plan of placing the two
genera in the same family.

Fam. Petasidae.—The genus Petasus is a small Medusa with four


radial canals, four gonads, four tentacles, and four free marginal
statorhabs. A few other genera associated with Petasus show simple
characters as regards the canals and the marginal organs, but as
very little is known of any of the genera the family may be regarded
as provisional only. Petasus is found in the Mediterranean and off
the Canaries.

Fam. Trachynemidae.—In this family there are eight radial canals,


and the statorhabs are sunk into a marginal vesicle. Trachynema,
characterised by its very long manubrium, is a not uncommon
Medusa of the Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Many
of the species are small, but T. funerarium has sometimes a disc two
inches in diameter. Homoconema and Pentachogon have numerous
very short tentacles.

Fam. Pectyllidae.—This family contains a few deep-sea species


with characters similar to those of the preceding family, but the
tentacles are provided with terminal suckers. Pectyllis is found in the
Atlantic Ocean at depths of over 1000 fathoms.

Fam. Aglauridae.—The radial canals are eight in number and the


statorhabs are usually free. In the manubrium there is a rod-like
projection of the mesogloea from the aboral wall of the gastric cavity,
covered by a thin epithelium of endoderm, which occupies a
considerable portion of the lumen of the manubrium. This organ may
be called the tongue. Aglaura has an octagonal umbrella, and a
manubrium which does not project beyond the velum. It occurs in the
Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea.

Fam. Geryoniidae.—In this family there are four or six radial canals,
the statorhabs are sunk in the mesogloea, and a tongue is present in
the manubrium. Liriope (Fig. 137) is sometimes as much as three
inches in diameter. It has a very long manubrium, and the tongue
sometimes projects beyond the mouth. There are four very long
radial tentacles. It is found in the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean
Sea, and the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Geryonia has a wider
geographical distribution than Liriope, and is sometimes four inches
in diameter. It differs from Liriope in having six, or a multiple of six,

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