6 THE GENUS MONTICULIPORA. 



boniferous. The materials, however, for deciding the true 

 affinities of the coral in question are insufficient ; and it is 

 quite possible that we have really to deal in this case with a 

 Ste7Wpora, to which genus the Calainopora Mackrothii, Gein., 

 may also belong. 



In 185 1, Milne-Edwards and Haime published their great 

 work on the Palaeozoic Corals (Polypiers Fossiles des Terrains 

 Palseozoiques), a work which will always be one 

 of the classics of the zoophytologist. So far as the 

 present genus is concerned, the French observers threw the 

 weight of their high authority against the acceptance of the 

 genus Monticidipora, D'Orb., though, as will afterwards be 

 seen, they subsequently altered their views upon this subject. 

 They described, however, a large number of species of Mon- 

 ticiilipora, referring these to the genus Chcetetes, Fischer. 

 Though the descriptions of these species — as was inevitable 

 at the time when the work was written — are not based upon 

 the minute methods of modern palaeontology, still it is not too 

 much to say that Milne-Edwards and Haime laid here the 

 foundations of our scientific knowledge of the genus Monti- 

 citlipoi^a ; and most of the species which they described have 

 since been accepted by later workers in the same field. It is 

 not necessary to enumerate in this place the numerous species 

 of Montiadipora which Milne- Edwards and Haime described 

 or noticed in the " Polypiers Fossiles," nor to discuss the 

 characters of these, especially as many of them will be fully 

 treated of later on. It may be added, however, that the 

 authors rejected the genus Stcnopora, Lonsd., and grouped 

 the species which had been referred to it under Chcstetes, 

 Fischer.^ 



In the same year M'Coy republished (Brit. Pal. Foss., p. 



^ In earlier publications (Comptes Rend., xxix. p. 261, 1849, and Introduction to 

 the 'Monograph on the British Fossil Corals,' p. Ixi., 1850) Milne-Edwards and 

 Haime accepted the genus Stenopora, Lonsd., but take as their type S. spinigera, 

 Lonsd., ignoring the characters upon which Lonsdale really based his genus, and 

 introducing as the special characteristic of the genus the non-essential feature 

 of the presence of spines at the angles of the calices. 



