24 THE VOYAGE OF H.M.S. CHALLENGER. 



Antipathes. — Under this genus Milne-Edwards classes all forms of Antipathidae 

 which have not been assigned a place in other genera. It is needless to say that it 

 includes a medley of species, united only by one common character,— the absence of 

 fusions between adjoining parts of the corallum. So far as the mode of branching is 

 concerned, we find almost every variety from simply pinnate forms, to the most complex. 

 One need only mention Antipathes pennacea, Pallas, Antipathes subpinnata, Ellis and 

 Solander, Antipathes larix, Esper, Antipathes abies (Linnaeus), Antipathes rnyriophylla, 

 Pallas, Antipathes dichotoma, Pallas, and Antipathes virgata, Esper, to show the endless 

 variety. At the present time some forty or fifty species might be named, all of which 

 would agree in the plan of branching with one or other of the species enumerated above. 

 Just as the presence of fusions in a colony appears to be of no generic value, so I con- 

 ceive the absence of them to be a minor feature, of value perhaps for specific purposes 

 (though even then not always), but of no value generically. Of the species which would 

 come under this genus as defined by Milne-Edwards, I find some with dimorphic zooids 

 and others without ; whilst in the latter section alone I find amongst the comparatively 

 few species examined at least four distinct types of zooids. Evidently then it is 

 impossible to adopt Milne-Edwards' modification of this genus, and in attempting to 

 found new ones I have relied chiefly on the form and structure of the zooids in the various 

 species observed. 



Gray (42) in 1860 described two additional species from Madeira, viz., Antipathes 

 (Cirrhijjathes) setacea and Antipathes gracilis. I have been unable to find the type of 

 Cirrhipathes setacea in the British Museum collection, but the type of his var. occi- 

 dentalis is preserved there, and as this appears to differ from any form previously 

 described I have here raised it to the rank of a species. 



In the same year the first part of Duchassaing and Michelotti's Memoir on the Corals 

 of the Antilles (43) appeared, and in this and the concluding portion published in 1866 

 four new forms are described, Cirrhipathes desbonni, which has since been met with by 

 Pourtales, and three species of Antipathes. Of these Antipathes americana is probably 

 a distinct species, whilst Arachnopathes particulate/, seems closely allied to Antipathes 

 atlantica, Gray, and Antipathes dissecta is equally closely related to Antipathes glaberrima, 

 Esper. 



Lacaze Duthiers was the first to study the structure of the polyps of the Antipathidse, 

 and in 1864 published the first of two important memoirs on the morphology of the group. 

 The earlier memoir (44) treats of the structure and relations of Leiopathes lamarcki, 

 Haime. The author was enabled to study living specimens collected by the coral fisher- 

 men off the coast of Algeria, and for the first time to make out the structure and affinities 

 of the polyp of this form which had not previously been observed. He shows how in 

 different states of preservation the whole or various parts of the colony have received 

 different names. 



