144. BRITISH FOSSIL CORALS, 
CHAPTER XII. 
CORALS FROM THE LIAS. 
Very few Corals have as yet been found in the Lias. ‘I'wo species belonging to the 
family of the 7wrbinolide have lately been discovered in a stratum of that formation at 
Ilminster, by Mr. C. Moore; and there is in the collection of the Geological Society 
of London a third species, which is labelled as having been found in the Lias, but without 
any indication of locality: it appears to belong to the family of the Cyathophyllide, and 
may, more probably, have been met with in some older deposit, for as yet all the well- 
characterised Cyathophyllide are peculiar to the Palaeozoic formations. We have also 
remarked in Mr. Walton’s collection a cast that appears to belong to a A/ontlivaltia, and 
was found by that Palaontologist in the Lias at Wiston; and we must add, that the 
occurrence of a Coral at Fenny Compton Tunnel, on the Oxford Canal, was pointed out by 
Messrs. Conybeare and W. Phillips,’ who considered that fossil as being referable to Zwr- 
hinolia or Madrepora turbinata of former zoologists. 
Family—TURBINOLID A, (p. xi.) 
Genus THECOCYATHUS, (p. XIV.) 
Tuecocyatuus Moor. Tab. XXX, figs. 6, 6a. 
Corallum simple, turbinate, short and thick, straight and adherent, and provided with 
a thin epitheca, through which straight, and almost equal costal strize are visible. Calice 
circular, not very deep. Columella well-developed, trabicular. Septa vather thin, granu- 
lated laterally, and forming four complete cycla; those of the last cyclum converging 
towards the tertiary ones, and joming them at their inner edge. Pa/i corresponding to 
all the septa of the first three cycla; those of the first two cycla small, and differmg but 
little ; those that correspond to the third cyclum of septa greatly developed, and distinctly 
bilobate ; their inner lobe thin, and much resembling the neighbouring pali; the outer 
lobe very thick, and granulated. Height, 3 lines ; diameter of the calice almost as much. 
This interesting fossil was communicated to us by Mr. C. Moore, of Ilminster, who 
found it on the Upper Lias near that town. 
! Outlines of the Geol. of England, p. 270. 
