POLYNESIAN PORITES. 83 
SOLOMON ISLANDS. 
59. Porites Solomon Islands qql. (P. Salomonis prima.) (Pl. IX. fig. 1.) 
[Santa Anna Island,* coll. Dr. Guppy; British Museum. ] 
Description.—The corallum forms rounded knobs, with smooth surface, slightly and scantily 
convoluted. The method of attachment is not known; the sides creep down at least 4 cm. 
The calicles, about 1°5 mm. across, are depressed and round, but not well defined owing 
to the loose flaky character of the reticular walls. The walls are 1 mm. thick, evenly 
round-topped, and consist of a very ragged reticulum showing a confused tangle of loose, 
rounded and pointed ends of skeletal matter. Its primitive structure out of trabecule, septa, 
and the inner synapticular ring, is not traceable. In the narrow valleys where the calicles are 
crowded and squeezed out of shape, the ragged walls may be thin and incomplete. The septa 
are also very ragged, but fairly symmetrically arranged ; some seven or eight of them end in 
minute paliform granules, which form an indistinct ring around a circular fossa. This fossa is 
conspicuous to the naked eye. In its base is a small columellar tubercle. 
At the sides of the stock the walls thicken and become more turgid, and the pali and 
septa more conspicuous. 
The section shows a very loose trabecular texture, with large round pores between thin 
wavy trabecule. Tabule are very conspicuous. 
There is only one specimen of this coral, which is like no other Porites in the collection. 
Its swollen walls, all reaching to the same height, and raising the whole surface except along a 
few narrow valleys, are peculiar features. 
a. Zool. Dept. 84. 12. 11. 2. 
60. Porites Solomon Islands qo), (P. Salomonis secunda.) (Pl. VIIL. fig. 2.) 
[Makira Harbour, San Cristoval, coll. H.M.S. ‘ Herald’; British Museum. | 
Deseription.—The corallum is massive and closely encrusting, the surface nearly smooth, 
with faint swellings separated by shallow valleys. 
Calicles shallow and round on the swellings, sharply angular in the valleys, mostly under 
1mm. The edges of the walls are composed of thin, nearly continuous rows of delicately 
frosted granules in the valleys, but on the swellings these rows rise as median ridges, on each 
side of which are broad, smooth, flat shelves diminishing in width as the swelling slopes into the 
valley. From these ridges, or from the edges of the shelves and apparently upon their surfaces, 
rise longer or shorter granules which represent the septa. Within each ring of granules there is 
* The Island Santa Anna is at the extreme S.E. end of the group. 
M 2 
