92 MADREPORARIA. 
reticulum in which the outlines of the calicles alone can be traced, it is difficult to say 
whether this is artificial or natural. In the latter case the reticular surface might be com- 
pared with that which occurs on the tops of that method of growth, which in Vol. IV. on 
Goniopora, I have called the expanding-sheaf formation, and which seems also to occur here 
(see Introduction, p. 22). 
It is to be regretted that there is no record as to what part of New Guinea these 
specimens came from. There is only one other Porites in the National Collection from this 
locality, and it is very different from this. 
a. Pear-shaped stock. Zool. Dept. 87. 1. 29. 6. 
b. Detached nodule. Zool. Dept. 87. 1. 29. 7. 
72. Porites New Guinea 3. (P. Nova Guineensis tertia.) (Pl. IX. fig. 4.) 
[New Guinea, coll. W. Gill; British Museum. ] 
Description.—The corallum is a small, oval, flattened pebble, without any attachment. 
The calicles are 1-1°5 mm. in diameter, and funnel-shaped ; they appear deepest round the 
rim of the oval. The wall is reticular, with an interrupted thread-like ridge from which coarse, 
thick septa slope symmetrically down towards the fossa. Where the surface seems to have been 
worn this thread is thick, smooth and zigzag, with the thick bases of the septa branching 
from it. The septa are thick at the base, wedge-shaped, and end in a group of minute 
frosted granules which seem to occupy the whole base. These granules are resolvable into 
septal granules, pali, and columellar tubercle. But the pali do not rise to break the down- 
ward slope of the septal edges; only in the calicles round the rim do the pali tend to stand 
up at all. The septal edges may be rows of the frosted granules, or else continuous, wedge- 
shaped plates with jagged edges. The interseptal loculi are thin, irregular slits, radiating 
symmetrically and reaching to the wall. 
There is only one specimen of this coral, 3°8 em. long, 2°8 cm. broad, and 1°7 cm, thick. 
Only one small patch about 1 cm. across was dead and corroded when the coral was found. 
The specimen may have been a natural development of some form which settles on small free 
objects, or a broken off nodule from some stationary coral. The former is suggested by its 
symmetrical shape without signs of its pebble form being due at all to attrition, for the surface 
is quite crisp. Unfortunately there are no other forms from New Guinea in the National 
Collection which might suggest a clue. In the meantime, then, it must be described by itself. 
It was labelled P. Hsperi, which is the name Dr. Briiggemann proposed for Esper’s second 
figure of M. conglomerata, a coral without locality, and now quite impossible to identify. 
a. Zool, Dept. 77. 1. 31. 3. 
