96 MADREPORARIA. 
with the surface. The septa meet and fuse in the typical manner; but inasmuch as they 
meet the columellar ring, the triplet is a little obscure. From the points of fusion pali of 
irregular sizes appear. A smooth, solid columellar tubercle here and there rises in the other- 
wise open and deep pin-hole fossa. There is no circular trough marking out the calicles, 
which here appear merely as darker and more open spots in the reticulum, and the coral, 
instead of the soft creamy appearance, has a bluish-grey stony look. 
One of these specimens has the upright columellar method of growth of a; but the other 
(Pl. XII. fig. 3) seems, at an earlier stage, to have been overturned, and from all its surface 
short, thick, flame-like columns have sprung up, which bend about and fuse quite irregularly. 
Among these secondary outgrowths many new stocks have started and show explanate 
bases with free edges. If there is plenty of room, the base may expand smoothly for a 
considerable extent before rising into coenenchymatous flames. If there is little room, the 
surface rises at once. 
6). Zool. Dept. 99. 3. 2. 6 and 7. 
77. Porites Caroline Islands (44. (P. Carolina quarta). (Pl. 1X. fig. 7; Pl. XII. fig. 4.) 
[Ponapé, coll. Mus. Godeffroy ; British Museum. } 
Description.—The corallum forms a large oval mass standing on a small base. On the upper 
half the surface rises into sub-conical lobes, which here and there run together to form wavy 
and rather sharp ridges. In the valleys between these lobes the surface dies. The living 
layer is some 12 cm. deep, and has a tendency to hang free, even here and there to bend 
outwards round the base, which is built up by the edges of former growths. Similar pendent or 
curling edges are seen trying to dip down into the valleys between the lobes, in which valleys 
the surface has died. 
The calicles are 1 mm. across, and are deeply sunk in all the upper parts of the stock 
between hich walls, which are either a thin trabecular latticework or thick and reticular. They 
are irregularly spaced, but nearly always isolated, seldom in meandrine groups. The walls are 
ragged rather than regularly denticulate, and rise to varying heights above the calicles at the top 
of the stock. At the angles the walls generally rise to a point. Young calicles developing on the 
tops of the walls start new lobes. The intra-calicular skeleton is very symmetrical with twelve 
deep interseptal loculi, which are open and conspicuous in the younger calicles, with their 
smooth skeleton, clear, open, columellar ring and tangle, with the seven to eight pali and central 
tubercle, which is smooth and slender. Where the skeleton is frosted, as in the adult calicle, 
the septa become wedge-shaped rows of large granules, and, with the large frosted pali, nearly 
fill the calicle, while the walls get gradually lower and more solid, and with smooth rounded 
surface. 
The palic formula is complete. The three small pali of the ventral triplet do not break 
the palic ring, and are, therefore, not septal granules. The columellar tubercle is conspicuous, 
slightly flattened, and at a lower level than the pali. The columellar tangle is open, and the 
synapticule joining the pali are frequently high up and conspicuous, 
