56 PAPERS FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF MARINE BIOLOGY. 



now nearly complete, and in it I discuss the relations of the living to the 

 fossil faunas, especially those of Tertiary age. 1 In order to obviate duplicate 

 publication I have omitted these topics from this paper, except to present 

 in tabular form the information on the species actually considered herein. 

 I am not giving a summary of present knowledge of the Cocos-Keeling or 

 Australian corals, as when I do that I wish to compare them with other Indo- 

 Pacific faunas. I am also omitting a summary of the ecologic information 

 obtained through these studies, as a manuscript on the ecology of modern 

 coral faunas is nearly ready for press, and in order to make it comprehensive 

 any summary or general conclusions presented here would have to be repub- 

 lished. Furthermore, as Dr. Mayer's paper, which precedes this one, dis- 

 cusses in detail the ecology of the corals on the Murray Island reef, I could 

 only supplement his account of them by considering some factors to which 

 he does not pay special attention. 



Some remarks should be made on the material available for comparison 

 in the preparation of this paper. The collection of living species of corals in 

 the U. S. National Museum is one of the largest in the world, and is probably 

 second only to that of the British Museum (Natural History). The first two 

 important collections which came into its possession are: (1) that of the 

 U. S. Exploring Expedition under Charles Wilkes, U. S. Navy, which was the 

 basis of Dana's classic volume on Zoophytes; (2) that of the North Pacific 

 Exploring Expedition, which was described by Verrill. Most of the types 

 of the species described in these reports are in the U. S. National Museum. 



During the past thirty years, or more, accessions have come from many 

 sources, important among which are the collections made by the U. S. Fish 

 Commission (later Bureau of Fisheries) steamer Albatross. The area covered 

 by this ship in its operations is enormous. An appreciation of how much 

 has been accomplished aboard it may be obtained from C. H. Town- 

 send's " Dredging and other operations of the United States Fish Commission 

 steamer Albatross, with bibliography relating to the work of the vessel." 2 

 This record extends through the cruise under the direction of Mr. A. Agassiz 

 in the Tropical Pacific in 1 899-1900. Corals were collected in the western 

 Atlantic Ocean and in the Pacific Ocean east of the longitude of the Mar- 

 shall and Padrone Islands, and were deposited in the U. S. National Museum. 

 At one time I intended specially reporting on the collection of Pacific corals 

 made in i89<)-i900, but after an examination it seemed to me scarcely to 

 warrant such treatment, as nearly all the specimens belong to well-known 

 species. I now believe an account of it should be published, as a large part 

 of the material comes from areas, especially the Paumotus, farther east in 

 the Pacific than those usually visited. I have critically identified nearly all 

 of it, and have used it in the preparation of this paper. 



'A summary of the geologic history of the Tertiary and Quaternary coral faunas of the southeastern 

 United States, the West Indies, and Central America is contained in Professional Paper 98-T, U. S. Geological 

 Survey, pp. 361-367, 1917. 



2 U. S. Fish Com. Rep. for 1900, pp. 387-562, pis. 1-7, 1901. 



