88 A. F. Verrill — Bermudian and West Indian Reef Corals. 



Favia Oken, 1815, restricted by Edw. and Haime, 1857. Star Corals. 



Astrea (1st section) Lamarck, Syst. Aniin. s. Vert., p. 371, 1801 ; (pars) Hist. 



Anim., ii, p. 60, 1816. 

 Favites (pars) Link, Beschr. Nat.-Samml., Univ. Eostock, iii, p. 162, 1807. 

 Favia (pars) Oken, Lehrb. Naturg., i, p. 67, 1815. 

 Astrea, subgenus Fissicella (pars) Dana, Zooph., p. 220, 1846. 

 Parastrea Edw. and Haime, Cornpt. -rendus, xxvii, p. 495, 1848; Ann. Sci. 



Nat., xii, 1850. 

 Favia Edw. and Haime, Hist. Nat. Corall., ii, p. 426, 1857; Verrill, these 



Trans., i, pp. 353-355, 1868. 

 Astrea Verrill, Coinm. Essex Inst., v, p. 33, 1865; Verrill, in Dana. Coral 



Islands, pp. 380, 388, 1874. 

 Astra>a Quelch, .Reef Corals, Chall. Exped., xvi, 1886. 



The name of this large genus has been much in question for a 

 long time. This is due to several reasons. When Astrea was first 

 proposed by Lamarck (1801) he gave it two sections with a single 

 sj)ecies as an example of each. His first section had A, rotulosa 

 as its type. The second section had A. galaxea (=radians) as the 

 type. Properly the name should have been retained for the former, 

 as the more typical and first named. 



But Oken, 1815, made two divisions similar to, but not the same 

 as those of Lamarck, and applied the name Favia to the group 

 more like the first of Lamarck's sections, and Astrea to the second. 

 Blainville, in 1830, named the latter Siderastrma. 



But under Favia Oken named three species, which belong to 

 three modern genera, viz : 1. F. ananas=F fragum ; 2. F caver- 

 nosa= Orbicello cavernosa ; 3. F. favites or favosa =? Prionastm a 

 abdita E. and H.=Favites Link. 



The true relations of A. rotulosa Ellis and Sol., Lamarck's first 

 type of Astrea, are still doubtful. It was referred to Favia by Edw. 

 and Haime, perhaps erroneously. Their species, thus named, may 

 very likely be different. It has much larger calicles, more numerous 

 septa, and they place it in the section with feeble pali. The general 

 appearance of the original figure is more like an Orbicello or 

 Plesiastrcea. It has a circle of very distinct, prominent pali, in 

 which it agrees with Plesiastrcea. The calicles are regular and cir- 

 cular and the septa are few and very prominent. I have never seen 

 a perfect specimen of it. A few beach-worn West Indian corals 

 that I have seen may belong to it, but they are not positively deter- 

 minable. 



