14 pi;eface. 



Lantly, Dr. Richard Rathbuu lias given nie unrestricted use of the 

 collection of recent corals in the United States National Museum, and Miss 

 Mary J. Rathbun has shown every kindness possible in enabling' me to get 

 at any material that I desired to examine. 



A few words of explanation of certain quotations in the svnon-\'inv 

 should be given liere. As the prepai-ation of this paper has extended over 

 several years, quite often a request has come to me for a list of a local 

 fauna, or for descriptions of its species. These requests have been complied 

 with, and in some of my own paj^ers I have referred to cei-tain of the 

 corals as sp. nov. or simply cited a nomen nudum. I have given nomina 

 nuda and species nova^ in the synonymy of the proper species, so that what 

 was meant in my earlier papers can be discovered. However, such spe- 

 cies date from the publication of this paper. 



The illustrations are from drawings by Dr. J. C. McConnell and Messrs. 

 J. Henry Blake, Hunter Harris, E. Sheppard, and H. Chadwick Hunter. 

 Dr. ]\IcConnell has made by far the greater number of drawings. The 

 figures were drawn at three different periods, with rather wide intervals 

 between. Some were drawn in 1(S94, some in the spring of 1897, and 

 some in the winter o{ 1898-99. They have not all been made to the same 

 scale, but in the plate explanations the scale of the tigure or the size of 

 the specimen is given. 



