of the Genus Fungia. 497 
with the specimens above mentioned, a slight notice of this sub- 
ject appeared under the article Fungia in the ** Encyclopedia 
Metropolitana"; and I regret that xii I communicated to the 
author of that account some remarks on the corals which I had 
collected, I was not aware that he intended to publish a notice of 
this discovery; as I could have given him more particulars upon 
the subject. 
That writer states, ** that they seem, when young, to be coni- 
cal, and attached to some marine body, often their parent, by 
the base, which is contracted into a kind of stem;” and ** when 
young, the coral has the appearance of a solitary Caryophyllia ; 
in this state the animal only occupies the upper surface, but. 
when it is full grown and free it completely ?ncloses the coral." 
As long as the young Fungia retains the form of a Caryo- 
phyllia it is entirely enveloped by the soft parts of the animal; 
but as the upper disc of the coral spreads, and it assumes its 
characteristic form, the pedicle is left naked, and the soft part 
extends only to the line where the separation afterwards takes 
place. I consider the cases in which young Fungie are found 
fixed to the underside of others of the same species, to arise from 
the accidental attachment of the young polype, when detached 
from the ovarium of the parent, and by the motion of the water 
floated underneath a larger one of its own species, the edges of 
which were not so even as to touch the rock or coral on which 
itrested, at every part of its circumference. In such cases the 
soft parts of the older specimen would continue to cover the 
short stem of the younger individual, and hence its separation 
from its pedicle would be prevented. 
3s2 EXPLA- 
