340 THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY 



Port Jackson, 16 fathoms. A larger specimen but greatly 

 worn, cast up on the beach at Manning River. Many doubtful 

 young specimens from dredge at Sydney Harbor. 



Genus Dendrophyllla, Be Blainville, 1830. 



Corallum compound and generally branched ; corallites cylin- 

 drical or cylindro-turbinate, arising from buds ; costae fine 

 vermiculate formed of grains always more simple near to the 

 calice, where also they are straighter ; calice tubercular ; fossa 

 deep ; columella more or less developed and prominent ; septa 

 thin, close, not exsert. 



M. Edwards separated from the genus all Dendrophyllioe which 

 had the last cycle incomplete, but Prof. Verrill, and after him 

 Dana, has shown that this peculiarity is sometimes present or 

 absent in the same species, and therefore the genus Camopsammia 

 must be abandoned. There are species of the genus recent 

 and fossil in Australia, the latter hitherto only found in Tasmania. 

 D. axifuga, D. coccinea, D. Gaimardi, and D. Urvillei are reported 

 as existing in New Zealand. They are not known to me as 

 Australian. Capt. Hutton, the well known naturalist at Dunedin, 

 assures me that they are not found in New Zealand. My own 

 opinion is not only in this, but in many similar instances, that the 

 specimens of the voyage of the Astrolabe got mixed, and that the 

 many tropical corals quoted by Messrs. Q. and Gr. as from Aus- 

 tralia and New Zealand, really came from the Pacific Islands 

 within the tropics. Certain it is that very few of their Australian 

 or New Zealand habitats can be verified. 



EXPLANATION OF PLATES. 



PLATE IV. 



Fig. 1. a. Calice of Sphenotrochus excavatus, enlarged. 



b. Side view of septum, enlarged. 



c. Side view of corallum, enlarged. 



