t) 



MALAY ARCHIPELA(if) GONIOPOR^. gl 



This cnral, and the next, while they were in the possession of Herr Gnstav Schneider, of 

 Basle, were classed together by Brtiggemaun as a new species, " Goniopora malaccensis." On 

 going over them again, however, he changed his mind, for in his manuscript Catalogue of the 

 British Museum Corals, p. 394, he mentioned only one, viz. Goniopora Singapore 3, as his 

 Goniopora malaccensis. But his original diagnosis was based upon both specimens. This is 

 another instance of the confusion that arises from the obligation to establish "species" with 

 inadequate data. 



The two corals can easily be compared by reference to the figs, on PI. "VI.: cf. figs. 1-2 

 with figs. 3-4. The pronounced reticular texture, the large number of thin, distinct, sym- 

 metrically arranged septa, and the prominent delicately reticular columellar tangle of this 

 coral contrast with the few thick coarse septa ending squarely and bluntly round a fossa, 

 sometimes like a ring of paliforiu plates, of the next coral. Nothing but the exigencies of 

 "species making" could have induced so distinguished a naturalist as Briiggemann to class the 

 two together. 



A comparison of PI. XII. fig. 13 with fig. 1 on PI. XIII. shows also the difference in 

 their growth-forms. 



Zool. Dept. 78. 4. 1. 5. 

 Purchased from Herr Gustav Schneider, in Basle. 



51. Goniopora Singapore (6)3. (PI. "VI. figs. 3 and 4 ; PI. XTII. fig. 1.) 



[Singapore; British Museum.] 



Goniopm-a malaccensis, Briiggemann, MS. Catalogue, and (pnrtim) Abh. Nat. Ver. Bremen, v. p. 348. 

 [Cf. G. Singapore 3.] 



Description. — Corallum rises into an erect column, whicli thickens evenly as it rises ; 

 with smooth slightly convex top and smooth sides, frequently sloping or curving outwards as 

 they rise. Oval or triangular in cross section, in the latter case with the angles rounded. 

 The column appears to grow some 10 cm. high and 7-8 across the top, after which a cluster 

 of new columns grows upon the top. The living layer extends about 3 • 5 cm. down tlie sides. 

 No continuous epithecal film. 



Calicles irregularly jDolygonal, 2 mm. across, except where lengthened out to 3 mm. on 

 the sides, where the calicles strive to turn upwards ; sometimes deep and funnel-shaped — e. g. 

 on the top, where they open in a streaming mass of nearly lamellate reticulum. On the top 

 (fig. 3) the walls are formed of this reticulum, and ai'e rather more delicate in texture than 

 are the well-developed septa. On the sides the walls are sharper, irregular and mostly simple, 

 neither straight nor regularly wavy, but crooked, jagged or granulated, the lower one frequently 

 steep, the upper one sloping upwards. 



The septa, usually in two cycles, stout and conspicuous, projecting just below the margin 

 and then liending down suddenly into the fossa. This bend becomes a sharp rising point in the 

 shallow calicles, and represents a palus, but on the deep calicles it is rounded off. Tertiaries 

 may appear in the lateml calicles. Below this ring of pali, which surrounds a fossa, a reticular 

 tangle occurs, but it is hardly conspicuous as a columella ; though in the lateral calicles it 



M 



