MALAYAN PORITES. l/l 
made rotten by boring organisms, so that it is difficult to ascertain whether it has been built 
up by former growths of this Porites or by Astreids. There is no section visible. The chief 
structural peculiarity of this Porites is its surface texture, which has no crispness or precision 
about it, but it appears to be a confused arrangement of rough or frosted granules. 
a. Zool. Dept. 93. 9. 1. 94. 
170. Porites China Sea ig7. (P. Sinensis septima.) (Pl. XXVI. fig. 6.) 
[Macclesfield Bank, 17 fathoms, coll. Bassett-Smith ; British Museum. | 
Description.—The encrusting corallum should apparently be massive, but, as the polyp 
tissues leaves the skeleton, coral-boring organisms destroy it, so that the living layer appears 
to creep over the decayed remains of previous growths. The edges are thin and sometimes free. 
The calicles are conspicuous, slightly over 1 mm. in diameter, and surrounded with 
ramparts. The walls are flaky, and on the top of the flakes there arises a coarse reticular 
rampart of filaments and flakes, the ends and tips of which are flattened and echinulate. 
These ramparts vary in height; they are blunt, but with sharp ridges, and, where they are 
conspicuous, cause the calicle to appear in the base of a pit. The septa are long, coarse, 
irregular tongues of the stout wall flakes, with echinulate edges, some broad, others narrow 
and bent, and seldom showing more than traces of the radial symmetry. Above these septa 
occasional flakes project from the ramparts as the beginnings of the next layer. The pali 
rise from the tips of the septa and their echinulate tips are the only granules seen in the 
calicle. They are small and very irregular upon a large loose ring; traces of the complete 
formation are seen here and there. The fossa is very shallow, and a small tubercle may be 
discovered rising irregularly from the flaky strands which fill it up. 
The vertical section shows a very coarse reticulum with large meshes and stout elements. 
The trabecule are fairly straight and thus conspicuous, but the horizontal elements are 
frequently much stouter. The colour of the unbleached coral is a greyish-brown, looking 
dusty owing to the presence of the fine echinule at the edges and tips of the flakes. 
This is one of the ecenenchymatous Porites, the walls rising up between the calicles to form 
ramparts into which the polyp can retreat. In this genus the polyps are not, as a rule, able 
to retreat fully into their skeletal receptacles. An extra rampart would, however, serve the 
same purpose as a deep calicle. 
The surface of the coral is covered over with Balanids and worm-tubes, and perhaps owes 
part of its irregularity to the fact that the living layer has had to spread over a previous growth 
similarly infested with foreign organisms. 
This coral is apparently closely related to No. 13 of the China Sea group. 
a, Zool, Dept. 93. 9, 1. 95. 
Z2 
