A. E. Verrill — Bermxidian and West Indian Reef Corals. 157 



geniculate ; many are in pairs, either equal or unequal, due to 

 immediate budding ; others form small groups of three to five, 

 evidently resulting from budding from the larger one of the group. 

 Such groups are surrounded by low, solid, reticulating collines, only 

 a little larger than the walls around isolated calicles, and arranged 

 without order. Rarely the calicles are in short rows of three or 

 more. 



The septa are numerous (24 to 36), very close, thickened, espec- 

 ially toward the inner ends, and closely, finely granulated or crispate 

 on the sides, as in Pachyseris ; their exposed, nearly horizontal 

 edges are minutely and roughly serrulate or granulate, but the inner 

 ends of the larger ones descend nearly perpendicularly at the minute 

 central pit, and this portion, as seen in section, is rather regularly 

 and finely serrulate. The septa are very unequal and form four 

 pretty regular cycles, sometimes with some of a fifth cycle. The 

 primary and secondary ones are decidedly larger and thicker than 

 the others and most of them reach the central pit, but the secon- 

 daries are a little the shorter and thinner ; those of the third and 

 fourth cycles are successively shorter ; the smallest are very short 

 and extend inward only a short distance in some of the systems, but 

 are often quite long and curved in the lateral systems. All the 

 septa rise to about the same level. The columella, when present, is 

 a minute solid tubercle, or sometimes two. 



The under side is naked, with small concentric undulations, and 

 also with shallow radial valleys, between which the surface is 

 slightly convex ; these convex parts are covered with fine, divergent 

 radial stria?, which run obliquely to the valleys on either side in a 

 fan-like manner. 



These costal stria? are only slightly raised, closely crowded, and 

 distinctly granulated. In vertical sections the coral is nearly solid, 

 except close to the upper surface. The interseptal spaces fill up 

 very quickly with a solid deposit and the interseptal walls are thick 

 and solid. 



The original type, according to Dana, w T as a thin frond ten inches 

 broad and one-eighth of an inch thick. Thickness of the fragment, 

 described above, 3 to 5 mm . The habitat is unknown, but it is prob- 

 ably Indo-Pacific. 



The Merulina ampliata (E. and Sol.) Ehr. was included in the 

 West Indian fauna by Duch. and Mich. (op. cit., p. 80, 1860), but 

 not as from personal observation. It is found only in the Indo- 

 Pacific region, like all the other species of the genus. 



