88 MADREPOKARIA. 



with the siirface. Tlie septa are rows of gramih's, which run over the broad Hat walls, striating 

 them transversely. The typical septal formula may be here obscured liy there Ijeiug as 

 many as 30 septa. All transition stages can be seen between these two extremes of calicle 

 formation. 



Remarkable, and hardly due to accident, are the large irregular interseptal loculi (see 

 fig. 3), as if a few septa here and there round the calicle had been dropped out, or, rather, 

 never developed further than as wall granules. These gaps add to the difficulty of discovering 

 the septal formula in a coral in which the septa in other respects are specially conspicuous. 



On this form of growth, in which the skeletal elements seem to consist of an expanding 

 sheaf of laminae, we have already commented (see Introduction, p. 26, also Table III. p. 171). 

 In all cases in which it is found we have again the same kind of calicles tending to develop 

 to similar extremes. In no other form, however, does the living layer extend down so far, 

 and, consequently, in no other form do the lateral calicles become so pronounced. 



The large interseptal gaps might easily be thought to be accidental, but they occur not 

 only in those specimens and in nearly all their calicle.s, but also in the two related forms, the 

 description of which follows next. 



The figures are all from the specimen in the BritiS'h Museum. 



a. Presented by the Cambridge University Museum. Zool. Dept. 1902. 9. 9. 9. 



A larger specimen is in the University Museum, Cambridge. 



In addition to these there is a small fragment (from the "Maldive Islands" and belonging 

 to the same Collection) which is probably part of the top of a smaller column with smaller 

 calicles. But being only a fragment, and showing such structural similarity, I place it here 

 provisionally as b. The real giowth-form is not known, and I rely upon the tendency to 

 raggeduess and general similarity to the specimens of G. Maldives 2 for the above state- 

 ment. The calicles (2 mm.) look deeper and more cylindrical. The walls are not so ragged, 

 and either membranous or else reticular (cf next specimen), and the part which the septa 

 play in their formation is obscured. The septa, which do not appear in the walls, are very 

 conspicuous in the calicle, and project as .5 to 8 s'ery thin jjerforate plates, some of them nearly 

 to the centre. Their numbers and direction are irregular, and traces appear of the large inter- 

 septal gaps described for specimen a and for that in the Cambridge Museum. 



h. Zool. Dept. 1902. 9. 9. 10. 



This form seems to lead on to the next coral. 



/ 



58. Goniopora Maldives (4)3. (Bl. VII. figs. 4 and 5 ; PI. XIII. fig. 8.) 

 [Island not named, coll. Gardiner ; Cambridge University Museum.] 



Description. — Corallum an irregular long-oval nodule, flat topped and with sides bulging 

 over the base of attachment, to which the edge of the living layer closely adheres. A pelli- 

 cular epitheca covers over the slight edge formations. 



Calicles about 2'5 mm., ill defined as deep irregular lioles in a delicate friable reticulum. 

 On the uppermost surface they are often hardly distinguishal)le, there being frequently no 



