POLYNESIAN GONIOPOE^. 39 



solid floor %vith a few knobs rising from its surface ; the interseptal lociili are reduced to pores. 

 The walls which descend straight down about 1 mm. on to the solid floor show hardly any 

 traces of radial septa on their rough granular sides. The calicles are now mostly round and 

 very shallow. 



The special points in this coral are : (1) the tall erect stems ; (2) the fact that very few 

 of the dividing points survive ; (3) the short extent of the living layer ; (4) the shallowness 

 of the calicles, even at the growing tips ; (5) the rapid solidifying of the skeleton ; (6) the 

 early irregularity and gradual obscuration of the radial symmetry wliich is at last confined to 

 the columella. 



There are three specimens of this coral, one cluster and two isolated branches. They had 

 been named Rhodarcca Icujrcndi, by Mr. Eidley, because of the slight resemblance they bear to 

 other specimens, G. Singaijore 1, which had been so named by Briiggemann (see p. 79). Not 

 only do these two corals differ considerably in the size or character of the calicles (cf. PI. V. 

 fig. 9), but also in the method of growth (cf. fig. 1, PI. I. with fig. 12, PL XII.) and in the 

 extent of the living layer. 



a. Shows the original brown colour. Zool. Dept. 8-i. 11. 21. 34. 



h. Part of a. Zool. Dept. 84. 11. 21. 34. 



c. Bleached. Zool. Dept. 84. 11. 21. 35. 



5. Goniopora Solomon Islands (4)2- (ri. I. fig. 2 ; PI. XI. fig. 2.) 

 [Shortland Island, Solomon Islands, coll. Dr. Guppy; British Museum.] 



Description. — Corallum a smooth mass, with irregular oval outline and flattened top; 

 narrow edges, supported by epitheca, creep round a short way under the mass, as far as the 

 large base of attachment. 



Calicles neatly circular, as if punctured into the surface as so many cylindrical pits ; 

 uniform in si^e, 2 to 2 • 5 mm. in diameter ; with small buds in the angles. Walls strikingly 

 uniform in thickness, and to the naked eye stout and solid. Seen with the glass the edge of 

 the wall is a uniformly coarse granular reticulum, very porous, thin, and tending to have a 

 sharp upper edge on the top of the corallum, but at the sides thick, flat-topped, and even 

 reticular, often striated transversely by septal edges. 



Round the margin within the fossa the 24 septa appear in the uppermost calicles as faint 

 rows of fine points, but in the thicker lateral calicles these points are pronounced knobs, 

 striating the wall. Six of these septa shoot suddenly out from the wall about 1*5 mm. 

 below the edge, and send up flattened paliform processes which rise to within 1 mm. of the 

 aperture, and often much higher. These unite with irregular tissue which rises up in the 

 centre, and form together the columellar tangle. The tertiaries, which remain quite rudi- 

 mentary, tend to bend round irregularly to fuse with these pali-bearing septa. In the lateral 

 calicles the pali thicken to granular knobs. The interseptal loculi are very conspicuous, and 

 while the radial symmetry is shown in the topmost calicles only by the six-rayed rosettes 



