SOLITARY CORALS. 189 



of M. Edwards and Haime depending on the presence or absence of pali, and created 

 in their stead three sub-families Turbinolidsa simplices, Turbinolidas gemmantes and 

 Turbinolidae reptantes. The first of these includes nearly the whole of the Caryo- 

 phyllinae and Turbinolinoe of M. Edwards and Haime and is divided into seven 

 alliances, viz.,Smilotrochoida, Flabelloida, Placotrochoida,Turbinoloida, Trochocyathoida, 

 Discocyathoida and Haplophylloida. Want of space and want of material forbid my 

 entering upon a criticism of Duncan's classification, and I must content myself with 

 remarking that it has been of no great assistance to systematists, and that the older 

 classification of M. Edwards and Haime has been generally preferred to it by recent 

 writers. Both classifications agree in placing the genus Flabelhmi and its allies as a 

 subordinate group of the Turbinolkke, and the most recent writer on the genus 

 Flabelhnu, Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner (22), adopts the classification of Duncan, 

 giving, however, a definition of the "Flabelloida," which I cannot find anywhere in 

 Duncan's paper. As I shall have to enter more fully into the structure and 

 classification of Flabelhmi and its allies in a subsequent part of this paper, I need 

 only say here that I am of the opinion that they differ from all other Turbinolidse in 

 several important characters, but chiefly in the fact that their wall is a persistent 

 prototheca (Bernard, 4), which is not thickened externally by a secondary deposit 

 of calcareous substance laid down by an "edge zone" or " perisarc," this latter 

 structure being, indeed, absent. They must, therefore, be classified apart in a family 

 Flabellidre, and the Turbinolidae, after the removal of the Flabellidae, may be defined 

 as follows : 



Corallum simple, or forming colonies by gemmation from the wall or from 

 stoloniform basal outgrowths. The wall is thickened externally by the secondary 

 deposit of calcareous tissue formed by the edge-zone, and is solid, variously 

 ornamented with costas, granules and spines, the spaces between the costas sometimes 

 filled up by the deposit. The upper part of the wall commonly formed by the union 

 of the enlarged outer ends of the septa. Epitheca, when present, pellicular or 

 lamellar, closely adherent. The septa commonly exsert and solid. Septal loculi open 

 to the base. Pali may or may not be present. Columella present or absent ; when 

 present it may be essential or parietal and of very various shape and composition. 



Paracyathus, M. Edwards and Haime.* 



This genus is easily recognised by its numerous lobate pali, scarcely distinguishable 

 from the prominences of the columella. The pali, however, should more correctly be 

 described as paliform lobes, as they are clearly thickenings of the inner ends of the 

 septa, and the outermost of the several crowns, at any rate, do not extend to the 

 base. The original definition of the genus given by M. Edwards and Haime, in 



* 'Ann. des Sci. Nat. Zool.,' 3 e s<5r., t. ix., p. 318, 1848; 'Hist. Nat. des Cor.,' t. ii., p. 52, 1857; 

 1'. M. Duncan, " Rev. Madrep.," 'Journ. Linn. Soc.,' vol. xviii., "Zool.," p. 24, 1885. 



