32 Bulletin Vanderbilt Marine Museum, Vol. VII 



Pennatulacea 



There is but a single species present of the Pennatulacea ; this 

 was taken by the **Ara" World Cruise in Manila Bay, Philippine 

 Islands. It is a magnificent colony more than a foot long, repre- 

 senting a new species, Veretillum vanderbilti Boone, a remarkable 

 and somewhat perplexing species that contains characters hitherto 

 found only in the genotype, a Mediterranean-Atlantic species, 

 combining these with characters heretofore considered distinctive 

 for several separate Indo-Pacific species. 



Aetinaria 



The Aetinaria are represented in the collections of the "Alva" 

 World Cruise of 1931-32 by two littoral species, one of which, 

 Gemmaria marquesana Boone, a colony of approximately two 

 hundred polyps attached to volcanic rock, taken in Anaho Bay, 

 Nuka Hiva Island, is new to science. The second species, Palythoa 

 tuberculosa (Esper), from the tidal zone of the Society Islands, 

 is represented by an exceptionally fine colony of polyps. Although 

 widely distributed in the Indo-Pacific, this primitive coral, which 

 possesses such intensely interesting anatomy, appears to be very 

 sparsely represented in museum collections. The "Ara" World 

 Cruise, 1928-1929, also took this species in Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii. 



The "Alva" World Cruise also secured a remarkably interest- 

 ing series of fifty-odd specimens of the larval stages of Peponactis 

 aequatorialis van Beneden in a deep-sea haul made north of the 

 Marquesas Islands. 



Madreporaria 



Both the "Ara" World Cruise of 1928-1929 and the "Alva" 

 World Cruise of 1931-1932 made extensive collections of excep- 

 tionally fine stone corals, discussed elsewhere. The two species 

 herein reported were collected by the "Ara" in Hawaii and include 

 the typical form of Pocillopora cespitosa Dana, which was first 

 taken by the United States Exploring Expedition in this archi- 

 pelago, and the veiy rare cluster coral, Dendrophyllia manni 

 ( Verrill) , known only from Kaneohe Bay, Oahu, and represented 

 in the Vanderbilt Marine Museum by the finest series of speci- 

 mens recorded. 



