(84 MADREPORARIA, 
a rather deep fossa, from which pali with white frosted tips rise conspicuously to the level of the 
wall. The pali are thus separated from the septal granules by a slight circular trough, which 
is not conspicuous. The five principals are large and conspicuous (in the figure they are mostly 
rubbed off), and sometimes there is a minute dorsal directive added. There is no central 
tubercle. 
The section of the coral shows a compact, singularly regular system of trabecule with 
close cross bars. The colour stain extends about 3°5 mm. below the surface. Tabule are 
excessively fine, and are not in continuous regular tiers, but broken up at all angles to the 
surface. 
There is only one specimen of this coral, which has been broken in chipping it off some 
rounded or cylindrical surface to which it was adhering. It differs entirely from all other 
Porites from this locality. The great difference between the walls on the swellings and in the 
valleys recalls Porites Ellice Islands 2 (Gardiner’s ‘ superfusa’); but the calicles are smaller, and 
the thickenings of the walls on the swellings are so obviously for the strengthening of the more 
exposed parts, whereas in ‘ P. swperfusa’ the proliferation of the delicate reticulum which raises 
certain areas is apparently due to the stimulation of commensal worms, and has no resemblance 
to the hard, flat walls of this type. 
a. (Presented by the Lords of the Admiralty.) Zool. Dept. 55. 12. 7. 152. 
61. Porites Solomon Islands qo8, (P. Salomonis tertia.) (Pl. VIII. fig. 9; Pl. XI. fig. 4.) 
[Treasury Island, coll. Dr. Guppy; British Museum. ] 
Description.—The corallum forms small, elegant tufts of stems from 8-10 mm. thick. The 
branching is quite irregular; apparently wherever there is room small rounded knobs grow out, 
swell, flatten, and divide into two or three fresh knobs, which again swell. The living layer is 
from 3-3°5 cm. deep. The dying portion is covered with a thin, white, glistening epithecal film. 
The calicles are uniform, superficial, 1 mm. in diameter, and angular. The wall traces a 
thin, ragged, often zigzag line like a network over the whole stock; it is sharp and slightly 
raised near the tips of the branches, but thicker and less well defined or raised on the lower 
parts. These wall lines are lost on the swollen tips, where a lamellated axial reticulum comes 
to the surface, making the swelling knobs look woolly. On these tips growing calicles with 
markedly lamellate septa can in some cases be clearly traced. The whole surface is granular, 
the granules being frosted; the walls are rows of granules sometimes joined by a very fine 
thread, at others resting singly upon a ring of flat flakes running round the calicle. Within 
this ring is that of the septal granules, and within this again the pali in formula D, fig. 3 (p. 19), 
except that the dorsal directive is thin and plate-like; a small columellar tubercle reaches to 
about the same level as the pali. 
This coral differs both in growth-form and calicle structure from all the branching Porites 
in the collection. , 
a. Zool. Dept. 84. 11. 21. 25. 
