AUSTRALIAN PORITES. 111 
96. Porites Great Barrier Reef (493, (P. Queenslandia tertia.) (Pl. XIV. fig. 3; 
Pl. XIX. fig. 1.) 
[Capricorn Islands, coll. W. Saville-Kent ; British Museum. | 
Description.—The corallum rises apparently as a small, rounded, but slightly compressed 
knob, about 1 em. or more thick, which is followed by a second one on its summit. The 
shoulders of the lower one expand and form fresh knobs, so that tufts are formed of flattened 
flabellate stems, 4 em. wide and 6 cm. high, with an irregular upper fringe of round knobs, and 
with the sides still showing the swellings of the knobs which have grown together. The living 
layer is from 4-5 cm. deep. 
The calicles are very variable in size; the largest 1°5 mm. in diameter, the smallest being 
minute specks, mere shallow depressions. Rapid intra-calicular budding forms small wart- 
like prominences on the top of the knobs; these appear to be the beginnings of fresh knobs. 
The walls are very thin, ragged, or finely denticulate. On the tops of the knobs they are tall and 
fragile, but on the sides they are strengthened by a slight flaky shelf appearing just below their 
margins, and this becomes more and more pronounced, till on the sides of the flabellate stem 
the thin median ridge has disappeared, and the walls are flattened flakes. In the topmost 
calicles, the septa are thin, with very irregular edges, often rising at once to form a minute 
frosted septal granule, and further in, but rising from a deeper level, the pali. On the sides 
of the stock the septa become very irregular flattened flakes, the tips of which swell into knobs, 
some of which are septal granules, others, further in and from a deeper level, pali. The septal 
granules nowhere form a regular ring, but the five principal pali are very regular. The 
fossa is either open, circular and deep, or else filled with skeletal strands, from which a central 
tubercle arises, never quite so high as the pali. 
The cross section shows the axial reticulum surrounded by very loose, irregularly nodulated 
trabeculz, with distinct but not very thickened horizontal elements. 
The colour of the unbleached coral is a greyish olive-green. 
Other Porites with this peculiar moniliform growth are known (see Table III.). At first 
it seemed possible to unite this form with the next, but comparison of the descriptions will 
show how different they are, 
a, Zool. Dept. 92. 12. 1. 306. 
97. Porites Great Barrier Reef (494. (P. Queenslandie quarta.) 
(Pl. XIV. fig. 4; Pl. XIX. fig. 2.) 
[Capricorn Islands, coll. W. Saville-Kent ; British Museum. ] 
Description—The corallum rises from a small ridge-like base into a clump of irregular 
flabellate or roughly cockscomb-like processes—that is, they are this shape where they have 
