POLYNESIAN PORITES. 43 
FIJI ISLANDS. 
16.* Porites Fiji Islands 41, (P. Fidjiensis prima.) (PI. II. fig. 9.) 
[Totoya (17 fathoms), coll. McGillivray (H.M.S. ‘ Herald’); British Museum. | 
Syn. Porites levis Dana, Zooph. (1848) p. 559; pl. liv. figs. 5 a-d. 
Description —Corallum ramose, stems 2 mm. thick, ultimate branchlets 1 em. ; the rounded 
or slightly flattened stems and branches bend about and change too suddenly in thickness to 
possess elegance or beauty of form. In addition to the end twigs, which may be thin and 
nearly 3cm. long, with their tips as if they had been pinched, small mammillate knobs 
about 1 em. long may come off at any angle from the sides of the stems. The living layer 
may extend 9 cm. 
The calicles are slightly over 1 mm. across, faintly pitting the surface, and are irregularly 
polygonal. The walls are thick, solid looking, and appear to be built up of large, semi- 
translucent frosted granules, heaped up without order. The septa are in the complete formula, 
very regular, thick, wedge-shaped near the walls, and tapering symmetrically towards the 
centre. Their edges are finely frosted, and their top edges tend to break up into square granules 
diminishing in size. The largest belong partly to the wall. The next are the septal granules, 
and the innermost are the pali. A deep, circular furrow separates the wall- from the septal- 
granules. The pali, usually five, are not conspicuous, hardly differing from the septal granules 
in size. The central tubercle, frosted like the other granules, is on the same level with the 
pali and of the same size, but is frequently flattened in the directive plane, so that the whole 
calicle is filled up with large, frosted granules. The interseptal loculi run up as narrow slits 
between the wall granules. On the basal parts of the stock the granules increase in size, the 
calicle depressions become shallower, the furrow round the septal granules is more marked, and 
a second furrow appears round the pali, so that the calicles are marked by sharp, concentric 
rings about the same width as the interseptal loculi. 
This is almost certainly the same kind as the coral described by Dana as Porites levis, 
The exact locality among the Fiji Islands was not mentioned by Dana. The characters of 
the growth-form as above described, agree perfectly with those shown in Dana’s figure, except 
that the Museum specimens are rather more stunted in growth. The general character of the 
granular surface, as given by Dana, is also the same. But he has drawn only one ring furrow, 
namely, that round the pali. This certainly appears in the basal parts of the stock, but the 
first to appear is that which separates the septal granules from the wall granules, 
* There is no need to arrange these Fijian Porites in the order in which they were originally 
recorded ; the bulk of the earlier records are from Dana’s work. I prefer to begin with the actual 
specimens as supplying a surer basis from which to judge of the earlier descriptions, 
G 2 
