AUSTRALIAN PORITES. 143 
134. Porites Great Barrier Reef (4941. (P. Queenslandie prima et quadragesima.) 
(Pl. XVIII. fig. 8; Pl. XX. fig. 4.) 
[Great Barrier Reef, coll. W. Saville-Kent ; British Museum. | 
Description.—The corallum rises into flattened fan-shaped plates, the edges of which divide 
into rounded or flattened lobes, which bend into different planes, until compact clusters are 
formed with a solid centre, from which short forking processes and cockscomb-like plates 
project in all directions. The flattened lobes, with undivided edges and constricted necks, 
may be 3 cm. high, 3 cm. broad and 0°75 em. thick, with divided edges 3°5 em. high, 4 cm. 
broad. The living layer is 6 cm. deep. 
The calicles are flush with the surface, from 1 to 1°3 mm. in diameter. The walls are 
narrow and flat-topped, raised slightly above the surface only near the tips of the stock. In 
texture the wall shows a surface layer of very branching granules spreading along the top, but 
not throwing up ragged ends; these rest upon a nearly solid flat surface with small pores. The 
septa are conspicuous, very echinulate, and show a fairly regular ring of septal granules only 
slightly separated from the walls. Within this is the ring of pali, which are usually in formula 
Diagram C, fig. 3, all but the dorsal directive being large frosted granules. The central tubercle 
isa small granule rising nearly to the level of the pali, and joined just below the surface by 
rays to the ring of pali. 
The section shows a very large meshed axial lamellate reticulum, which comes to the 
surface at the tips of processes and edges of the flabellate lobes as a tangle of so many vertical 
plates in which calicles appear. Round this the trabeculz are regularly and radially arranged 
at even distances apart, and all ending in blunt points at the surface. 
The colour of the unbleached coral is a bright reddish-brown. 
This is a very singular method of growth. The original flabellate stock can hardly now 
be traced, as the stalk of the whole has apparently been secondarily thickened. 
a. Zool. Dept. 92. 12. 1. 409. 
135. Porites Great Barrier Reef (4942. (P. Queenslandic secunda et quadragesima.) 
(Pl. XVIII. fig. 9; Pl. XX. fig. 5.) 
[Great Barrier Reef, coll. W. Saville-Kent ; British Museum. | 
Description.—The corallum rises from a small explanate base, 1°5 cm. in diameter, mto 
small flattened knobs, probably only slightly constricted; these proliferate until a stalked cluster 
of short, blunt, usually flattened processes, from 1 to 1°5 cm. long, radiate outwardly in all 
directions from a central mass, which, in the first instance, represented the secondarily thickened 
original knob. In old stocks these clusters spread out and break up into separate secondary 
clusters. The living layer of a cluster is about 4°5 em. deep. 
The calicles are small, uniformly about 1 mm., crowded, polygonal, and superficial. The 
walls are a thin, slightly raised ridge, tracing a low network over the surface. They consist of 
