CORALS FROM MURRAY, COCOS-KEELING, AND FANNING ISLANDS. II3 



Regarding Favia hawaiiensis Vaughan, which Matthai refers with a query to 

 the synonymy of his Favia pentagona, I will say that I erred in placing the species 

 in Favia. It is a Leptastrea, and is a synonym of VerrilPs L. stellulata, which is a 

 synonym of L. ehrenbergiana Milne Edwards and Haime and of Astrera purpurea 

 Dana. (See page 93 for additional remarks.) 



Distribution. — Red Sea; Indian Ocean from the Seychelles to Cocos-Keeling. 

 Matthai refers one of the Challenger specimens from Api, New Hebrides, described 

 by Quelch as Goniastraa laxa, to this species; otherwise it is not known from the 

 Pacific Ocean. 



Favites spectabilis (Verrill). 

 Plate 44, figures 1, \a, Verrill's type of Prionastraa spectabilis. 



1846. Astraa magnified Dana, U. S. Expl. Exped., Zoopli., p. 231, plate 12, figs. 30-30 (non de Blainville). 

 1872. Prionastraa spectabilis Verrill, in Dana's Corals and Coral Islands, p. 381. 



The following is a description of the type, No. 79, U. S. National Museum: 



Corallum of massive growth-form, upper surface domed; horizontal diameter, 96 by 

 93 mm.; height, 53 mm. 



Corallites separated by narrow, compact walls, which are rarely 0.5 mm. thick on the 

 upper edge. 



Calices polygonal or elongate with sinuous sides. Usual length about I cm.; occasion- 

 ally as much as 1.5 cm.; width usually about 6 mm.; range from 4 to 8 mm. Depth about 

 9 mm.; it is greater than the width of the calices. 



Septa crowded, about 12 to 5 mm.; alternately larger and smaller on top of the wall; 

 upper margins scarcely exsert, the arch curved or flattish. Within the calices every second, 

 fourth, or sixth may reach the columella. All septal margins are narrow above the crown 

 of well-developed paliform lobes which bound the columella fossa. Septal edges regularly 

 and finely dentate (pectinate); above the level of the paliform lobes are dentations barely 

 visible to the naked eye; below the lobes the dentations are somewhat coarser and less 

 regular. Septal faces finely granulate. 



Columella fossa a deep pit with steep sides. Columella small, composed of laxly fused 

 septal trabeculae. 



Asexual reproduction near the edge of the corallum is by marginal fission, but on older 

 parts of the corallum processes extend from the sides of corallites across the cavities and 

 form new corallites by equal or subequal fission. The illustrations (plate 44, figs. I, la), show 

 the latter method of division, which also occurs in Acanthastrea echinata (see plate 49, fig. 2) . 



Locality. — East Indies. 



This coral has greatly puzzled me, as it combines characters of Goniastrea with 

 those of Favites. The U. S. National Museum has 9 specimens, collected by J. B. 

 Steere in the southern Philippines, which I am referring to the same species. The 

 calices are not always so deep or so elongate and sinuous as in the type. The suite 

 of specimens mentioned, although in some respects resembling Goniastrea pectinata, 

 seem definitely to be Favites, and three of them are suggestively like Favites abdita. 

 A more detailed study of the collections from the Philippine Islands might shed 

 additional light on the limits of variation and affinities of this species, but at present 

 I lack opportunity further to pursue the subject. 



Distribution. — East Indies; southern Philippines. 



Genus GONIASTREA Milne Edwards and Haime. 

 1S48. Goniastrea Milne Edwards and Haime, Acad. Sci., Comptes rend., vol. 27, p. 495. 



Type species: Astrea retiformis Lamarck. 



Matthai, in his paper already cited, considers four species of Goniastrea, viz, 

 G. solida, which he credits to Milne Edwards and Haime, although he takes the 

 name from Forskal and gives his first reference to de Blainville, G. retiformis (Lam.), 

 G. pectinata (Ehr.), and G. planulata (M. Edw. and H.). All these are represented 

 in the U. S. National Museum. Regarding the name solida, which Matthai applies 



