8 BRITISH FOSSIL CORALS. 
Family ASTREID AS (p. xxii). 
Tribe ASTREIN AX (p. xxxi). 
Genus CRYPTANGIA (p. xliv). 
1. Crypraneia Woopnu. Tab. I, figs. 4, 4a, 46, 4c, 4d, 4e. 
Ciapocora cartosa, Lonsdale; in Searles Wood’s Catal. Ann. of Nat. Hist., vol. xiii, 
p- xii, 1844.1 
Crypraneta Wooptt, Milne Edwards and J. Haime, Mem. sur les Astreides, Comptes rend. 
de l’Acad. des Sciences, vol. xxvii, p. 496, 1848. 
This singular fossil Coral is always found immersed in a mass of Cellepora, a peculiarity 
which is also met with in another species of the same genus, belonging to the Faluns of 
‘Touraine. At first sight, the vesicular mass formed by these Bryzoa may easily be mistaken 
for a cellular epithecal ccenenchyma, resembling that of Sarcinula ; but an attentive examina- 
tion of the cells will lead to a recognition of their real nature, and similar masses of Cellepora, 
not contaming any Cryptangia, are often found in the same localities. It is however 
remarkable, that Corals of this genus should never be found adhering to other extraneous 
bodies, and should always take up their abode on a cluster of Cellepora, which, increasing 
as they themselves grow up, imbeds them so completely, that the calices alone remain 
free on the surface of the common mass. 
The mode of multiplication of Cryptangia is also worthy of notice. ‘These Corals 
always form clusters, and must be produced by gemmiferous stolons, but the radiciform 
expansions from which they must proceed do not become sclerenchymatous, and leave 
little or no trace of their existence ; so that when the soft parts are destroyed, as is always 
the case in fossils, the different corallites appear to be quite independent, and would be 
free, were it not for the extraneous cellular mass in which they are so deeply immersed. 
It is therefore easy to perceive that these Corals differ widely from C/adocora, to which 
they were referred by Mr. Lonsdale, and are equally distinct from the generic forms to 
which the name of Lithodendron, applied by M. Michelin to the Touraine species, had 
been previously given. They are nearly allied to the Astreine reptantes, for which we have 
established the genera Angia and Rhizangia, but must constitute a separate generic group, 
which we have proposed calling Cryptangia. 
' The Madrepora cariosa of Goldfuss, to which this fossil was referred by the above-mentioned author, 
is a true Madrepora, and neither the ove nor the other can be placed in Ehrenberg’s genus Cladocora, 
The typic specimen of M. cariosa, figured and described by Goldfuss, is preserved in the Museum of Bonn, 
where it was attentively examined by one of us; it is a fossil of the Parisian basin, having a spongy 
coenenchyma, and the visceral cavity of the corallites divided into two parts in consequence of the great 
development of two opposite primary septa. 
