8 MADREPORARIA. 
Ogilvie’s uncertainty as to where the genus should really be placed, on p. 223 it is thought 
to be an extreme form of the Madreporaria Perforata, but on p. 328 doubts are raised as to 
whether it can be united with the Coenenchymata (= Madreporids) at all. 
In 1898, two separate accounts of the Porites collected at Funafuti appeared, one by 
Mr. Stanley Gardiner * and the other by Dr. T. Whitelegge,t of the Australian Museum, Sydney. 
The former records some eleven forms (from Funafuti, Rotuma, and Wakaya, Fiji); of these, 
eight were described as hitherto unknown forms. Dr. Whitelegge records seven, all from 
Funafuti, and gives them all old specific names. It is impossible to say how far Dr. Whitelegge’s 
collection overlapped Mr. Gardiner’s. Old specific names alone given to specimens of Porites 
tell us, unfortunately, nothing about them, and even brief descriptions, unless with illus- 
trations, are of little value. Only elaborate and well illustrated descriptions can help us in 
dealing with so difficult and intricate a group. 
In 1899, the present writer $ discussed the position of the Poritidz, and therefore of Porites. 
A description of their structural characters, as compared with the rest of the Madreporaria, 
and based solely upon an analysis of the skeleton, led him to the conclusion, that the Porites 
were dwarfed Madreporids, and that Goniopora might be deduced from Porites by secondary 
enlargement. 
In the same year,§ however, the discovery of the bilateral symmetry in, and the true 
septal formula of Porites, and of the fact that the latter could be deduced from that of 
Goniopora by a process of reduction (see below, p. 13, diagram), led him to regard Goniopora 
as the more primitive. 
The discovery was made at the same time that the pali, which had hitherto been regarded 
as a simple cluster of points or granules, in reality appear according to certain definite plans as 
to size and number, thus supplying an entirely new character for the systematic treatment 
of the genus. The analysis of the palic formula has been carried much further in this 
volume (see p. 18). 
Many references to this genus occur also in Vol. IV. of this Catalogue. 
In 1901, Professor Studer || described new Porites from the Pacific area, well illustrated by 
photography, and thus of permanent value. 
Dr. Wayland Vaughan has done similar service to our knowledge of the West 
Indian forms, also published in the same year in connection with the United States Geo- 
logical Survey. This work will be noticed again in Part I1., which will deal especially with 
that group. 
In 1902, Dr. Duerden ** published an account of the West Indian Madreporaria, both 
anatomical and histological. It contains a special account of a West Indian form supposed 
to be specifically identical with that which Lamarck called Porites astrwoudes, 
* Proc. Zool. Soc., p. 257. + Mem, III., part 6, of the Australian Museum, p. 349. 
t Journ. Linn. Soc., xxvii. p. 127. § Op. cit., p. 487. 
|| Zool. Jahrb. xiv. (syst.) p. 388. gq Bull. U.S. Fish Commission, ii. p. 314. 
** Mem. Nat. Acad. Sci., Washington, viii. 
