Art. XVI. — Polyzoa from the Gilbert Islands. 



By C. M. MAPLESTONE. 



(With Plates XXVI.-XXVIII.). 

 [Read 10th September, J 908]. 



Some five years ago the Rev. Dr. Porter, of Petersham. N.S.W., 

 sent me some slides of Polyzoa that he had received from the 

 Gilbert Islands. At that time I was not able to do more than 

 make a cursory examination of them, and I laid them aside. 

 Now, however, I have been able to make a tiiorough examination 

 of them, and, as would naturally be supposed from the locality 

 from which they came, being situate on the Equator, in longi- 

 tude 174 deg. East, I found that almost all of them were new 

 to science. Many of the specimens are not in very good condi- 

 tion, having minute fragments of sand, etc., adhering to them, 

 and some of them are in a fragmentary state ; still among them 

 I have found many of considerable interest. 



In addition to those descuibed below, there were a specimen of 

 a Farcirninaria too much shrivelled up to identify ; a specimen 

 of a very slender form of Tuhucellaria cereoides less than one- 

 fourth the diameter of those found upon this coast, but other- 

 wise identical with them ; a Retepora indistinguishable in its 

 zooecial characteristics from R. produrta, Busk., recorded in 

 the '' Challenger ' Polyzoa as from Tongatabo and the Philip- 

 pine Islands (Gilbert Islands are about midway between these 

 places), but the branches are free, not anastomosing, and very 

 much narrower and more delicate than those described by Busk ; 

 and a specimen of Schizoporella cecilu, which, though not ex- 

 actly the same as the form found here, cannot be differentiated 

 from it ; also specimens of Rettporat, Crisiae, Lichenoporae, 

 T'uhuliporae, and other genera which cannot be definitely placed, 

 being more or less imperfect, and on the slide containing the 

 Catenaria are some pieces of a Notamia, but as the doisal sur- 

 face only is visible, the sj)ecies cannot bo determined. 



