8 MADRErORARIA. 



under a heading " B. scptis palhdisquc hirtis," whereas, according to my Paris notes, these 

 elements are quite smooth in Lamarck's original coral. 



Up to this date, then, we find a struggle between the two tendencies ; on the one hand, 

 a kind of instinct to believe tliat every form discovered must belong to one or other of " les 

 espt;ces counues," although all that was really known was little more tlian a few book names * ; 

 and on the other, the conviction forced home by actual observation and comparison that the 

 differences were profound, and necessitated separate descriptions and names. Unfortunately, 

 from tliis time onwards, it was the former tendency which carried the day. 



In 1871, Pourtales studied the Florida reefs, a locality quite distinct from any of the 

 localities we have yet named, and from which, so far as we know, no Forites had been 

 recorded, or if it had been, it had not found its way into the larger treatises here referred to. 

 Both encrusting and branching forms were found in great abundance. Without a word of 

 comment, the former were assumed to be of the same species as the one Lamarck called 

 as^ro-oirfts, wliile the latter were divided between the supposed species clavaria a,nd furcata. 

 This process is perfectly natural accortling to the belief that coral "species" have wide 

 indefinite distributions, and that, given any single specimen of coral, we may assume the 

 existence of more or less extensively distributed " species," as we certainly could do if the 

 Corals were endowed with the same powers of locomotion as is possessed by bu-d and fish. 

 But we are beginning now to discover that this can no longer be assumed of the Corals. They 

 are, so far as we know, local forms. Consequently, we begin to realise that we shall never 

 recover Lamarck's forms clavaria and furcata until we discover the localities whence they were 

 originally brought. 



It is, of course, possible that they may have come from the Florida reefs, but it is far more 

 probable that they came from some West IncUan island with which France was at that time 

 apparently in more frequent communication than with any other parts of the American seas. 

 What is certain is tliat the attempt to force all brandling Porites into one of two purely 

 imaginary species " clavaria " and "ftircata " began from this date. The wisli referred to above 

 seems to have begun to assert itself. 



In the year 1880, the same writer f worked over the corals brought from the Florida reefs 

 by Agassiz, and wrote the explanation of the Plates. Three different branching forms are 

 illustrated, different not only in form of growth, V)ut, if anything, even nn)re strikingly cUflerent 

 in the calicles. One is called clavaria, and the otlier two fvrcata. All three of them eire very 

 different from Lamarck's originals. 



One almost instinctively asks what can be the difference between clavaria a,nA furcata if 

 ordinary differences are so completely ignored. It must be something very profound ! It is, 

 therefore, somewhat startling to find that it is nothing more than that clavaria is supposed to 

 be more club-shaped ■dTn\. furcata more openly forked. We are, consequently, not surprised to 



• And perhaps Mihie-Edwanls' beautiful, liut generally neglected figures of P. J'umita, see 

 above, p. 6. 



t Mom. Mus. Comp. Zool. jil. xii. tigs. 4, 7 ; pi. xvi. 



