CORALS AND CORAL-ANIMALS. i8i 



landscape. Among other species exhibiting a branching, Stags'-horn, growth-plan, Madrcpora 

 grandis, Chromo IX., Fig. 8, is notable for the bright-yellow, pale-lemon, light-lilac, or nearly 

 white, tint of its massive branching corallum. In a variety of the almost equally massive 

 Madrcpora decipiens, Chromo IX., Fig. 5, the general surface of the component branches is pale 

 yellow, and the terminal inch or so of every branchlet, rose-pink. The prominent tubular 

 corallites, in their respective regions, exhibit a brighter tint of the normal ground colour ; the 

 polyps in this type are greenish-yellow on the main shafts of the larger branches, and a pure 

 canary-yellow throughout the remaining areas. In the more delicately branching type, Madrcpora 

 pulchra, Chromo IX., Fig. 12, the general ground colour of the corallum is light buff or yellow 

 ochre, and the abnormally large terminal corallite, or it may be the terminal half-inch of every 

 branchlet, a pale porcelain-blue or the most delicate lilac. The extended polyps vary on the general 

 surface from light-brown to greenish-yellow, while those belonging to the single, lilac, apical 

 corallite, are not unfrequently bright emerald-green. The handsome electric-blue species, Madrc- 

 pora laxa, Chromo IX., Fig. 6, collected at the Palm Islands, has been referred to on page in. 



Between the typical " Stags'-horn " Madreporae and the corymbose, or bouquet-shaped, 

 varieties next described, that group may be interpolated whose coralla form bush-like clumps, 

 composed of relatively slender, but very thickly ramifying, branches. The bleached coralla of 

 Madrcpora rosaria and M. forinosa, included in Plate I. of the photo-mezzotype series, afford 

 appropriate illustrations of this group, to which may be added the three species represented 

 by typical branches in Figs. 11, 16, and 17 of Chromo plate No. IX. Madrcpora divaricata, 

 represented by Fig. 17 in the plate named, is remarkable for both the elegant contour of its 

 corallum and the brilliance of its living tints. The bush-like corallum much resembles that of 

 Madrcpora forinosa, photographically represented by Fig. 24 of Plate I., but differs from it most 

 essentially in the fact that the branchlets freely coalesce with one another at every point of 

 contact. The most characteristic hues of this species, as represented in the coloured lithograph, 

 include a bright straw-coloured general ground tint, with the terminal half-inch shading from 

 pale lilac, approximately, to brilliant magenta or heliotrope at the apical terminations. The two 

 illustrations. Figs. 11 and 16 in Chromo plate IX., represent branchlets, in the former instance 

 of Madrcpora Elscyi, and, in the latter, a variety of the same type or the Madrcpora scabrosa of 

 Quelch. The brilliant grass-green Madrcpora oriiata, obtained from the neighbourhood of the 

 Claremont Lightship, represented by Chromo IX., Fig. 4, furnishes another interesting connect- 

 ing form, between the typical Stags'-horn and the spreading, corymbiform, species. 



Among the species of Madreporae that exhibit a distinct vase-shaped, or corymbiform, type of 

 growth, an equally varied range of coloration obtains. By far the most abundantly developed 

 and most widely distributed representatives of this particular series are known by the names of 

 Madrcpora millcpora and M. convexa. The first-named type occurs abundantly throughout the 

 Barrier district, and is one of the reef species which, until within a relatively recent date {see p. 



