PREFACE. xi 



considerable an exposition of coral-reef organisation. In the same matter, and also for much 

 personal hospitality during the investigation of the Torres Strait district, the Honourable John 

 Douglas, Government resident at Thursday Island, and Mr. Frank Jardine, of Somerset and 

 the Albany Pass, must have special mention. Valuable and willing assistance was rendered 

 by the Harbourmasters and Customs officials of Cooktown, Cairns, Townsville, Mackay, 

 Bowen, and other ports, which were made the bases of excursions to various districts of the 

 Barrier. 



A few months' residence in England, before taking up an official engagement with the 

 Western Australian Government, has proved all too short for the working out of fully-detailed 

 catalogues of the very extensive coral collections made throughout the Barrier district. The 

 collection has been presented to the British (Natural History) Museum ; and a detailed list of 

 the species of the single genus Madrepora, numbering no fewer than seventy species identified, 

 many of which are described as new, by Mr. George Brook, F.L.S., at present engaged on the 

 compilation of a systematic catalogue of the British Museum collections, is added to this 

 volume, in the form of an appendix, together with a rougher list, complete as to the generic 

 identifications only, of the representatives of the residual mass, for which the author is 

 responsible. 



Whenever the investigations now in progress are more advanced, and the necessary 

 leisure is afforded him, the author hopes to complete, for contribution to one or more of the 

 scientific societies, fully detailed reports upon the coral fauna of the Australian seas, 

 including that of the Great Barrier and of the Northern and Western Australian districts. 

 For assistance towards the accomplishment of this more comprehensive, and at the same 

 time more purely technical, task, the author is indebted — as in the case of his earlier 

 monograph on the Infusoria — for substantial assistance from the Government Scientific 

 Research Fund, disbursed by the Council of the Royal Society. 



Acknowledgments are due to Professor F. J. Bell, M.A., of the Zoological Department of 

 the Natural History Museum, for the specific identification of the greater number of the 

 Holothuridae or Beche-de-mer figured and described in this volume, and for his indication to 

 the author of such types among them as are new to science ; and a like indebtedness must 

 be owned to Professor A. C. Haddon, M.A., of the Royal College of Science, Dublin, for services 

 associated with the identification of the Torres Strait and Barrier Reef anemones. 



The warmest thanks are accorded Professor G. B. Howes, F.L.S., of the Royal College of 



