CORALS FROM MURRAY, COCOS-KEELING, AND FANNING ISLANDS. 89 



Columella composed of septal spines, depressed, diameter about one-third that of a calice. 



The upper surface of the exotheca is granulate, the granulations indefinitely arranged 

 or in the line of costal prolongations. They are rounded or squarish in transverse outline 

 and are secondarily spinulose. The exotheca is comparatively dense, vesicles from 0.25 

 to 0.5 mm. apart. 



Dissepiments thin, nearly horizontal, about 0.3 mm. apart. 



Stations, Murray Island. — Southeast reef, line I: 



540 feet from shore; water 12 inches deep; bottom rocky. 



600 feet from shore; on base of Euphyllia rugosa Dana. 



1,020 feet from shore; water 14 inches deep at lowest tide; bottom rocky. 



1,600 feet from shore; water 10 inches deep. 



Also from the inner side of a reef patch of the Great Barrier Reef, 6 miles 

 east by north from Murray Island, incrusting the base of a specimen of Acropora 

 gemmifera (Brook). 



The described specimen of this coral in its growth-form, the number and arrange- 

 ment of its septa, and in the size of the calices correspond to Cyphastrea serailia 

 (Forskal), while its dense exotheca and the exothecal ornamentation correspond 

 to the characters of C. microphthalma (Lam.). Comparison with a good suite of 

 specimens of the former leads me to believe it a skeletal variation of that species. 



Distribution. — Red Sea; Indian Ocean; Great Barrier Reef; Philippine Islands. 



Genus LEPTASTREA Milne Edwards and Haime. 



1848. Leptaslrea Milne Edwards and Haime, Acad. Sci., Comptes rend., vol. 27, p. 494. 



1849. Leptastrea Milne Edwards and Haime, Ann. Sci. nat., 3d ser., Zool., vol. 12, p. 119. 



1850. Leptastrea Milne Edwards and Haime, Brit. Foss. Corals, p. xl. 



Type species: Leptastrea roissyana Milne Edwards and Haime. 



Milne Edwards and Haime, when they originally described this genus, did 

 not follow their usual practice and designate a type species. In their next pub- 

 lication they described and named two species: L. roissyana and L. ehrenbergiana, 

 the former of which they had figured in the preceding volume of the "Annales 

 des Sciences naturelles," plate 4, figures 6, 6a. As in their British Fossil Corals 

 they designate L. roissyana as the type species, it is obligatory to adopt it as the 

 genotype, an unfortunate course, as the type specimen of the species is abnormal, 

 and the figures and description are not altogether satisfactory. The notes of Matthai 

 do not shed light on the problem, for his text and his figures contradict each other. 

 However, it seems to me that L. roissyana is a synonym of Astrcea ( = Leptastrea) 

 purpurea (Dana), but it may be the same as Leptastrea transversa Klunzinger, as 

 Matthai contends. 



Klunzinger, in his "Korallenthiere des Rothen Meeres," pp. 44-47, recognized 

 five species of Leptastrea and admirably characterized and figured them. They 

 are L. botla (M. Edw. and H.) and L. in&qualis Klz. (here combined under the 

 former name), L. ehrenbergiana M. Edw. and H.,L. transversa Klz., and L. immersa 

 Klz. They can all be identified with confidence. 



Regarding Matthai's treatment of the genus, I will say that the statements 

 in his text and the figures are often contradictory; for instance, he says of the 

 columella of L. roissyana, in the synonymy of which he places Klunzinger's L. 

 transversa: "Columella much compressed laterally, indistinct, primary and second- 

 ary septa almost meeting in the center and forming with the two directive septa a 

 transverse partition across the calyx." (Italics mine.) His plate 17, figure 4, 



