124 [August 
SOME NEW BOOKS 
THE STRUCTURE OF CORALS 
Microscopic AND SYSTEMATIC StupDY OF MADREPORARIAN TyPEs oF Corals. By 
Miss Maria M. Ogilvie, D.Se., Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc., London. Vol. 187, 1896, 
pp. 83-345. Price, 11s, 6d. 
Miss OGILVIE’S work on the microscopic and systematic study of 
Madreporaria, read before the Royal Society in November 1895, was 
a long time in appearing in print. It is a copious and an ambitious 
work, one which reflects great praise on the industry and the capacity 
of the authoress, yet, as must always be the case in a work of such 
pretensions, it is open to a considerable amount of criticism in details. 
To criticise it adequately one would have to enter into minutiae which 
are of little interest except to the specialist ; to criticise it at all one 
must necessarily enter into details which are unfamiliar even to 
zoological readers, unless they happen to have made a special study 
of corals. 
It is well known that the stony corais, though they present but a 
limited range of structural peculiarities, are so rich and various in 
detail and display such infinite variety of form, that their classification 
presents great difficulties. These difficulties have been enhanced by 
the fact that even now the anatomy of the polyps is only known 
for a relatively small number of forms, and that there is a vast assem- 
blage of extinct corals of which we only can know the structure of the 
skeletons : the nature of the polyps to which the skeletons belonged 
can only be inferred from the small knowledge we have of the 
anatomy of recent types. A great number of the palaeozoic forms of 
corals appeared to differ so much in their characters from later and 
recent corals that they were classified apart by Milne Edwards and 
Haime under the names Rugosa, Tabulata, and Tubulosa. The groups 
Tabulata and Tubulosa have disappeared some time since, but the 
group Rugosa has remained, in spite of the fact that several authors, 
but especially Gottlieb von Koch, have shown that the intimate 
structure of the coralla of many Rugosa is in all essential characters 
the same as that of recent corals. The group of Rugosa has survived, 
against the better judgment of many investigators, because it was 
convenient to palaeontologists, and in the study of corals as in that of 
many other groups, palaeontologists and zoologists have worked with 
too little heed to each other’s doings. Miss Ogilvie writes as a 
palaeontologist, but as one whose ideas are moulded by the teachings 
of zoology. A great part of her work refers to the structure of 
recent forms, and her conclusions as to the nature and systematic 
position of ancient corals are founded on the knowledge which she 
has gained from her studies of living forms. The result is that 
she has turned the old classification of Milne Edwards and Haime 
upside down, and even those who have accustomed themselves 
