REPORT ON THE REEF-CORALS. 5 
where the specimens in the collection differ from the descriptions of the typical specimens, 
such differences have been noted ; and where additional characters or interesting varietal 
forms are present, these are described often at considerable length. Re-examination and 
re-description of many of the old scattered type specimens are urgently required, and 
when these are forthcoming it is likely that some of the forms referred to old species, to 
which they present decided likeness, though differmg in many stated particulars, will be 
found to be sufficiently characterized to be ranked as distinct species. Of the generic 
grouping of the large number of species described by Dana in his great work on the 
Zoophytes of the United States Exploring Expedition, the valuable revised list by Verrill, 
published in Dana’s Corals and Coral Islands, is taken as the scheme ; exception being 
made, however, in one or two instances in the revised specific determination. Revised 
specific descriptions with figures, however, are urgently needed of many of these forms. 
Detailed synonymy of the species described by the old authors has not been given, 
. since it has already been given at length by Milne-Edwards and Haime in their classical 
work, Histoire naturelle des Coralliaires ; more modern synonyms of different species 
have been mentioned or indicated, however, in those cases where the synonymy is 
obvious. 
Besides the reference to the description given by the author of the species, reference 
has been made in almost every case both to the re-description as given by Milne-Edwards 
and Haime in their great work, which thus serves as a handbook of reference for the 
species of the old authors, and to those later works in which additional light is thrown 
on the characters and affinities of the older as well as of the more recently described 
species, while additional references are given to those works in which good figures of 
the species are to be found. 
No priority is given in any case to manuscript names; the published descriptions 
being alone referred to. 
ON DISTRIBUTION. 
In the treatment of the distribution of the Reef-Corals, lists have been given of the 
species which were obtained at each locality, together with lists of the new species, and 
of the old species which are now recorded for the first time fiom each station ; while an 
attempt has been made to furnish in each case a complete list of the recognised species 
now known to occur there. 
In order to give some idea of the local conditions under which the Corals flourish on 
the reefs, quotations bearing on the point have been given in all cases, where possible, 
from the observations of Professor Moseley, as stated in each case ; unfortunately, how- 
ever, the information at hand gives little or nothing of the conditions or surroundings 
peculiar to individual species. For information of this kind to be of any value, detailed 
