172 MADREPORARIA. 
171. Porites China Sea (198. (P. Sinensis octava.) (Pl. X XVI. fig. 7.) 
[Macclesfield Bank, 17 fathoms, coll. Bassett-Smith ; British Museum. | 
Description.—The corallum forms a thick encrusting mass with smooth surface, raised 
into slight conical waves, separated by narrow but evenly concave valleys ; without free edges. 
The calicles are small, 0°75 mm. in diameter, flush with the surface. The walls appear 
broad and flat, and covered with very minute and delicate granules. These rise from the 
surfaces or edges of flat flakes with very crisp echinulate edges. These flakes make the wall 
look solid. The septa are thin but very echinulate tongues of these flakes, some from the 
uppermost layer, others from the next lower. Septal granules and pali rise to the level of the 
wall. They are very delicate, minute and echinulate, the four lateral principal pali being 
slightly larger than the rest. The palic formula is complete, the ring being large and loose. 
The fossa is shallow, and an echinulate, frequently flattened tubercle rises nearly to the surface. 
The vertical section shows a dense mass, in which the trabecule and the horizontal 
elements are about equally developed, so far as quantity is concerned, but the trabecule, 
inasmuch as they are continuous, are the more conspicuous. A horizontal section looks 
solid but with a scurfy surface. 
The colour of the unbleached coral is a dusty greyish-brown. 
This Porites, with its surface covering of exquisitely minute echinulate granules, the 
echinule sometimes meeting as if to form a delicate surface reticulum which would later 
become flaky, recalls the delicate surface reticulum seen on a rare foliate form, which will be 
described in Part II. among the specimens from unknown localities. This feature and its 
flaky texture should make the form easy to identify. 
a. Zool. Dept. 93. 9. 1. 93. 
172. Porites China Sea (99. (P. Sinensis nona.) (Pl. XXVI. fig. 8.) 
[Macclesfield Bank, 13-23 fathoms, coll. Bassett-Smith ; British Museum. | 
Description.—The corallum forms a close ragged tangle of short thick stems all fusing 
together without apparent order. The stems are of no definite shapes, swollen, nodulated, and 
forking. The lower levels die down, and the living colonies at the top may creep over them 
as small encrusting stocks with edges only slightly free. No tuft with freely rising stems and 
branchlets is known ; they probably appear as the early stages of growth. 
The calicles are obscure, but indicated by the positions of the ramparts. A young calicle 
opens on almost every ccenenchymatous uprising. The walls appear to be a reticulum of fine 
echinulate threads, and they rise up here and there above the level of the calicles into papille 
of very delicate reticulum; these papillee may be single and scattered, or fused together into 
