AUSTRALIAN PORITES. 145 
137. Porites North-East Australia (2, (P. Australie Aquilonaris secunda.) 
[North-East Australia, coll, H.M.S. ‘Alert’; British Museum. ] 
Description.—The corallum forms a small knob, enveloping the mouth of a spiral worm- 
tube, without closing the aperture; edge closely encrusting. The worm-tube adheres to the 
tip of a fallen stem of Madrepora. 
The calicles are about 1°5 mm., shallow funnel-shaped. The walls have a median ridge, 
from which the septa slope gradually down to the small central fossa. The texture of walls 
and septa seem to consist of very stout trabecule, which end at the surface in large, irregular 
granules, which stand up all over the surface. There is a row along the ridge of the wall, and 
though somewhat irregularly, a row of wall granules, inside which is a ring of smaller septal 
granules, and, still further in, a ring of four principal pali. The septal granules seem in this 
case to serve for the fowr smaller pali (cf. E, fig. 3, p. 19) which are hardly raised, and are 
inconspicuous. The fossa is shallow, and has an inconspicuous central tubercle. The whole 
texture of the surface is very coarse. 
There is only one small colony with smooth round surface, 1 cm. across and 1°5 em. 
long. It may be too small to show the adult characters, but the calicles have very distinctive 
structural features. , 
a. Zool. Dept. 82. 2. 23. 140. 
One other coral from the same collection, made by H.M.S. ‘Alert, and from the same 
locality, appears to be “specifically” identical with the forms here called P. Great Barrier 
Feef 29, most of which come from the Torres Strait. It seems not improbable that the two 
specimens just described may also be from that same locality. 
NORTH AUSTRALIA. 
138. Porites North Australia (g1, (P. Australie Borealis prima.) (Pl. XXII. fig. 2; 
Pl. XXIV. fig. 1.) 
[Port Essington, coll. J. B. Jukes; British Museum.] 
Description.—The corallum rises as an open cluster of short, thick, flattened processes 
curving upwards from a widely creeping base (which probably envelops a prone previous 
growth). The processes, or thick branching stems, are 4-5 em. high, and from 2-3°5 cm. 
U 
