TUEBINARIA. 9 



In 1889,* aud in 1890,t Dr. Ortmann proposed two principles of classification. The 

 former is based upon the type of the skeleton of the individual corallites, the corals falling 

 under this heading into three groups : Euthecalia, PseudothecaUa and Athecalia. The second 

 is based upon the method of budding which gives rise to the form of the corallum character- 

 istic of each genus. The Madreporidaj (including Turbinaria) are classified as follows : order 

 Athecalia, suborder Synapticulata, the septa being connected by a wall-like arrangement of 

 synapticulift. Colonies formed by " Wandknospung," or lateral budding from the waU, the 

 porous waU in all cases being secondarily thickened.^ Dr. Ortmann, further, gives a provisional 

 phylogenetic tree, in which Tiu-hinaria is derived from Astrccopora. He adds two new species : 

 T. maxima and T. quincuncialis. 



In 1892, Eehberg,§ in describing the corals of the Hamburg Museum, records two new 

 species, T. marmora and T. crispa. 



In the autumn of 1894, the present writer made a special study of the genus, basing liis 

 researches upon the specimens in the British Museum, which had been enriched by the great 

 collections made by Mr. Saville-Kent on the Great Barrier Eeef, as weU as on the west coast 

 of AustraHa.|| The results obtained by the author, briefly sketched above in the introductory 

 paragraphs, are described in more detail in the following pages.lT 



THE LIVING POLYP AND ITS ANATOMY. 



Dana, in the atlas to his ' Zoophytes,' gives pictures of the living animals of T. frondcm 

 (pi. xxvii. 10a), T. palifcra (pi. xxix. 2h), and of T. pcltata (pi. xxx. 4a). The tentacles in 

 these figures are all more or less contracted. Saville-Kent** has recently given coloured 

 figures of living Turbiuarian polyps, viz. of T. patula, T. pcltata and T. " cinerascens," with 

 expanded tentacles. These latter are pointed, awl-shaped, and appear to be somewhat longer 

 than the diameter of the oral disc. 



The colours appear to be very brilliant and to show great variations. Dana, for instance, 

 figures T. pcltata pale green, with a blue oral disc. SavUle-Kent described the colours 

 as being, in some cases, white with greenish centres on a whity brown corallum, which is 

 described as " thickly studded inside with short-stalked daisies"; other specimens occurred 

 in which corallum aud pol}!] are a delicate rose pink. 



* Zool. Jahrb. Syst. Abth., iv. p. 493. 



t Zoitsch. wiss. Zool., 1. p. 278. 



X This IS not the place to enter into a lengthy criticism of this scheme. Its applicability to 

 this genus will be explained in the section on Morphology, p. 10. 



§ Abh. 2sat. Wiss. Ver. Hamburg, xii. p. 1. 



II Two smaller coUections, one made by Mr. J. J. Lister at Tongiitabu, and the second ))j- 

 Professor A. C. Haddon in the Ton-es Straits, were incorporated about the same time. 



f Cf. also Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., (G) xv. (1895) p. 499. 



*" See chrom. pi. viii. in 'The Great Barrier Kccf.' 



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