Zoological Society. 519 



PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 



ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



June 23, 1857.— Dr. Gray, F.R.S., V.P., in the Chair. 



Description of New Genera of Gorgoniad^. By Dr. 

 John Edward Gray, F.R.S., F.L.S., V.P. Z. & Ent. Soc. 



1. Sarcogorgia. 



The coral rather irregularly furcately branched on a single plane. 

 The axis black, cylindrical, thick at the base, with slender flexible 

 branchlets. The bark fleshy ; in the dry state, thin, like a continuous 

 skin, smooth, without spicula, with rather close, more or less raised 

 cells, strengthened with a quantity of sand-like, granular spicula. 



This genus is at once distinguished from all the other Gorgonice 

 that I have seen, by its thin, smooth, skin-like bark studded with 

 sandy, more or less raised, wart-like cells, which on the thick stem are 

 numerous all round the surface, scarcely raised, while on the thinner 

 branchlets they are further apart, and form prominent wart-like 

 cells. 



The axis is olive-brown, formed of concentric laminae, which often 

 show a space between them at the fractures. When the bark is soaked 

 in potash it is rather thick and flesh-like, and the cells are surrounded 

 with a single series of rather regularly disposed, nearly equal-sized, 

 angular, sand-like, transparent particles, forming a sheath to the 

 polype. 



The tentacles of the polypes, when examined in this state, are 

 thick, conical, and simple, without any indication of the pinnate tu- 

 bercles which are to be seen in the living Gorgonia^ according to the 

 observations of most naturalists. 



I know of only a single species of the genus, which was purchased 

 of a dealer in natural history at Liverpool, without any habitat. 



Sarcogorgia phidippus. 



2. Subergorgia. 



Coral furcately branched, rather compressed, with a continued 

 sunken groove up the middle of each side. Cells rather prominent, 

 convex, in two or three somewhat irregular series up each edge. Axis 

 pale brown, wart-like, formed of rather loosely concentric fibrous 

 laminae, containing a large quantity of calcareous matter, and eff"er- 

 vescing with muriatic acid. The bark when dry is rather thin, 

 smooth, hard and granular within. 



Subergorgia suberosa. 



Gorgonia suberosa, Esper. t. 49. 



This genus, and the genera Junceella, Ctenocella, and Gorgonella 



