94 THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE LINNEAN SOCIETY 



The new coral to which I have now to draw attention is a 

 very remarkable instance of the appearance in the present epoch 

 of characters which belong to long-extinct forms of life, united 

 to others which are our commonest forms of zoophytic life. 

 Most geologists are familar with a certain fossil coral which goes 

 by the name of Microsolena. It is a zoothome of a dense tissue 

 with rather deep calicos, without pali or distinct walls, with 

 confluent septa very much perforated or trabecular, and the 

 whole mass of the calices surrounded by a strongly marked 

 epitheca. The most marked feature amongst them is their 

 confluent calices, which renders it difficult to distinguish them 

 from Thamnastrece and Oroseris when they are not in a good 

 state of preservation. They are all lower Mesozoic fossils, the 

 most of them having been found in the Upper Jura of France, or 

 in the Great Oolite of England. Lamouroux (^Exposition metho- 

 dique des genres de Vordre Polypiers, Caen 1821, p. 65,) and 

 subsequently Blainville {Manuel d\ictinologie, 1834, p. 423), 

 regarded the fossil which served as the type of the genus, as near 

 to the Tuhuliporoe, (which are Polyzoa,) because they mistook 

 the trabecular portions of the septa as tubes which had been 

 filled up by a process which was then supposed to happen in the 

 case of Geriopora. Mons. H. Michelin (Iconographie Zoophyto- 

 logique. Description des polypiers fossiles de France et des pays 

 environnants jig. par L. Michelin and J. Delarue, 1841-1847, p. 

 227, 1845) was the first to recognize the true character of these 

 corals, but he mistook the genus and named them Alveopora. In 

 reality says Milne Edwards {Hist. Nat, des Gorallaires vol. 3, 

 1860, p. 196,) the genus Microsolena differs very little from 

 Cosciyiarcea, and is only distinguished by the lax tissue, the 

 complete epitheca, and the more scattered trabecular septa. 



The genus Microsolena belongs to the second family of Madre- 

 PORAKIA PERFORATA, the PoRiTiD-E, a division which is characterized 

 by the reticulate, trabecular and porous sclerenchyma ; the 

 individuals always closely united together either directly by thin 

 walls or by the insertion of a spongy ccenenchyma ; they increase 

 by gemmation which is ordinarily extracalicular and submarginal. 



