PORITES. 11 
represent any structural difference of generic importance. They fall within the range of 
ordinary variations. 
As to the difference between Neoporites and Cosmoporites, the authors were not sufficiently 
explicit. They seem to have referred to some slight variation in the character of the columellar 
tangle, which can safely be dismissed as of no generic value. 
(d) Stylarea. 
This genus was first established by Milne-Edwards and Haime,* in the year 1851, for a 
coral from some unknown locality found in the Berlin Museum, and previously named by 
Ehrenberg ¢ Porites punctata Linnzus and Esper. A glance at Esper’s figure showed that that 
identification at least was incorrect. The name was therefore changed to Stylarwa Miilleri. 
In the same year, however, in their “Monographie des Poritides,’ + they went back to 
Ehrenberg’s designation. This was adhered to in “ Les Coralliaires” in 1860. 
The next reference to the genus was by Dr. Klunzinger, who had to deal with the same 
specimen. This writer united it with Ehrenberg’s No. 17 Porites arenacea, probably a young 
colony from the Red Sea, and with specimens of his own, also from the Red Sea, and for 
these he revived the genus Stylarqa, calling the specimens S. punctata § (see under the Red 
Sea forms). 
The genus is said to differ from Porites in having few septa, no pali, and well developed 
columella, in some respects even resembling a Stylophora. Dr. Klunzinger’s excellent 
photograph of one of his own specimens comes to our help. An examination shows that these 
characters are very irregular. Dismissing the absence of pali as a well-known character of 
deep calicles, we turn to the columella ; this we find is uncertain in appearance, and variable 
in shape, while lastly the septa are so devoid of all symmetry, here developed, there not, that 
the specimen appears to us to be simply a young Porites colony with calicles so crowded as to 
be incomplete. This irregularity and incompleteness of very young calicles, whether appearing 
among adults, or forming by themselves a young stock, is frequently seen. All Dr. Klunzinger’s 
specimens were, I believe, young colonies, as were those described by Ehrenberg. 
The genus, therefore, requires a much firmer foundation before it can be considered as 
established. Specimens must be found in which a type of calicle can be seen, at least as 
definite as those of adult specimens of Porites, for in them, no matter how small and intricate 
the skeletal pattern may be, an unmistakable uniformity is always visible. It is the absence 
of this uniformity which compels me to regard the specimens on which Dr. Klunzinger relies 
as young colonies of immature individuals with irregular only half-formed skeletons. 
* Poly. foss. der ter. paléozoiques, p. 143. 
+ Korallthiere des Rothen Meeres, p. 118, No. 17. 
ft Ann. Sci. Nat., xvi. p. 30. 
§ Korallthiere des Rothen Meeres, ii. (1879) p. 44. 
