REPORT ON THE ANTIPATHARIA. 27 



to this species is really a larger and more densely branched form of Antipathes filix, 

 Pourtales. In this, his last work on the subject, five new species are described, and a 

 sixth, Antipathes eupteridea, Lamouroux, was met with apparently for the first time 

 since the species had been described by Lamouroux from a Martinique specimen 

 over fifty years previously. Amongst the new forms described, Antipathes salix, 

 Antipathes rigida, and Antipathes thyroides have a similar polyp to that of Antipathes 

 humilis, Pourtales, and the two former are probably only varieties of the same species. 

 Antipathes picea appears to possess a type of polyp not previously described. The oral 

 cone forms a prominent rounded knob, the mouth apparently being very small in spirit 

 specimens, and the tentacles, arranged somewhat in pairs, are flattened and have a crenate 

 margin. Finally, Antipathes tanacetum agrees precisely with Antipathes picea in the 

 mode of branching, but has much more elongate spines. The polyps in this specimen 

 were too badly preserved to show the arrangement of parts. The true Cirrhipathes 

 desbonni, Duchassaing and Michelotti, is also recorded. 



Pourtales is the first and indeed almost the only author who has given us figures of 

 the arrangement of spines in all the species described. His plates also include figures 

 of the polyps of seven species. 



In 1871 he advocated the removal of Gerardia lamarcki from amongst the Anti- 

 patharia, and suggested that it should be included amongst the Zoanthidse as the type of 

 a new subfamily. He then argued that the polyps of Gerardia differ in no particular 

 from those of the Zoanthidse in the arrangement, number, or shape of the tentacles, and 

 even agree with that group in the habit of encrusting the derm with small foreign bodies. 

 He at the same time pointed out that this genus has no other relationship with the 

 Antipathidse than the property of secreting a horny axis. He calls attention to the fact 

 that the genera of Antipathidse as at present defined are based solely on the solid parts, 

 and adds : — 



" It has seemed to me, however, that two distinct types of polyps could be distin- 

 guished, the one well circumscribed, flower-shaped, symmetrically radiate, with long 

 tentacles ; the other so elongate longitudinally that the radiate shape is quite indistinct, 

 the six tentacles being disposed in pairs at some distance from each other." At the 

 same time he points out that amongst the few species examined there appeared 

 to be no connection between the form of the polyp and the general shape of the 

 corallum. 



Throughout all his papers Pourtales uses the name Antipathes as the sole generic 

 designation, but in the last of the series makes an attempt to use the difference in the 

 shape of the polyps, and in the disposition and form of the spines, to draw characters for 

 a revision of the group. 



He calls attention to the fact that there are at least two different types of spines, and 

 that these are usually associated with a different form of polyp. In the one type the 



