BRAZILIAN PORITES. 29 



Group II. -BRAZIL. 



5. Porites Brazil 1. (P. Braziliensis prima.) 



[Recife do Lixo, AluoUios, and abundantly at Porto Seguro, coll. C. F. Hartt ; 

 Yale College Museum.] 



Syn. Porites solida * Verrill, Trans. Conn. Acad. i. (1868) p. 359. 



Description. — The corallum is encrusting "or" massive, rounded, with uneven sivrface, 

 and spreading margin " covered with " (? = supported by) a strong epitheca. 



The calicles are unusually large (2 mm.), deep, well-defined and sub-cii'cular. The walls 

 are " rather " thick, acute, and " divided into " spinous processes. The septa are nearly equal, 

 well developed, rather wide, their inner edges perpendicular and in-egularly toothed, their sides 

 scarcely roughened. Pali not distinct. The columella is well developed as a solid floor to the 

 fossa, and is surmounted by a small tubercle. 



Dr. Verrill tliought this was distinguishable from any other West Indian Porites, liut came 

 nearest to P. Guadalupcnsis of Duch. and Mich, (see p. 45). Dr. Vaughan would regard it 

 merely as a specimen of P. astrceoides, which is one of the two " species " into which he would 

 divide the whole of the West Indian massive forms (cf next form P. Brazil 3). Not having 

 seen the specimen myself, I can pronounce no opinion except upon the general principles 

 involved, already referred to in the Introduction, p. 10 and p. 14, where it is shown that, as 

 our morphological insight deepens, differences, now unperceived, are likely to be discovered, and 

 that it is safer to label the specimens from the places they come from than, assuming that the 

 differences, if any, are unimportant, to put them all into one species. This is not classifica- 

 tion, but the negation of it. 



It is quite possible that the designation P. astrwoidcs formd Braziliensis might be better 

 than P. Brazil 1. But I cannot recommend it, on the ground that there is no evidence what- 

 ever to lead us to believe that all the encrusting forms constitute a group apart, genetically 

 distinct from all the branching. The fact that transition forms occur (see p. 14) points the 

 other way. See p. 142 on the limitation of the use of the term " astraeoid " in this volume. 



6. Porites Brazil 2- (P- Braziliensis secunda.) 



[Parahybo do Norte, and Candeias Reef, Pernambuco, colls. Branner and Hartt ; 

 U.S. Nat. Museum.] 



Syn. Porites bramwri Rathbun, Proc. U.S. Nat. Museum, x. (1887) p. 355, pi. xix. fig. 2. 



Description.— Iha corallum is usually closely encrusting, with convex smface generally 

 smooth. 



* As this name was already applied to a Porites from the Red Sea by For.skal, Rehberg suggested 

 that the Brazilian form should be called Porites rerrilUi (Abh. Nat. Wiss. Verein Hamburg, xii. part 1 

 (1892) p. 48) 



