INDIAN OCEAN PORITES. 205 
One side shows a tendency to form the long, smooth, vertical ridges as in a, while the other is 
covered with knobs like those of 8, but not yet developed into pronounced columns. 
d,e. Differ from the foregoing in bulging out all round above the wide flat bases, and 
forming thickening columns with flat or convex tops ; these are broken up into hundreds of 
irregular, rounded and ridge-like tips of small component columns. The sides are irregularly 
fluted by rows of small eminences, ridges, knobs, or even points sloping upwards. The 
growths differ from any of the foregoing, inasmuch as the original stocks grew to some size and 
had sent up clusters of columns before the pendent crinoline-like edge hung round them. In 
all the other growths the edge started out very early when the primitive stock was small, and 
grew out horizontally ; in this case the original stock was coated over by successive creeping 
layers before the side itself came down as a thick cushion edge, alive with calicles on both 
sides. 
There is a large vertical section of specimen d, showing that the sheaf arrangement of the 
trabecule has something to do with this growth-form, It isa complete sheaf system, which 
bends round and down to form this thick, hanging edge. 
The calicles on the tops of both these specimens are opening in a fine, ragged, flaky 
reticulum, in d more regularly than ine, in which much undifferentiated reticulum occurs. 
In both, the pali form a central boss in the very shallow calicles. 
a-t. Zool. Dept. 1904. 10, 17. 50-64. 
205. Porites Ceylon 299. (P. Ceylonica nona.) (Pl. XXXI. fig. 1.) 
This series ends with a loose, lenticular fragment like a pebble, which appears to have 
lived as a detached colony. Every part of it seems to have been alive, for though the calicles 
are all flush with the surface, there is no sign of any part having been worn down as a pebble, 
nor is there any means of knowing on which side it last rested. 
This detached method of life may quite alter the characters of the calicles. There are no 
means now of connecting the specimen with any of the forms so far described as from this 
locality. 
The walls are broad, slightly rounded, without any trace of median keel ; they consist of a 
very flaky reticulum, the flakes lying horizontally, with minute pores. On one surface (? the 
one last uppermost) the skeleton is covered with frosted granules which emphasise the septal 
skeleton. This shows a ring of septal granules and a ring of six pali with a columellar tubercle. 
In the absence of these granules the septa are flat, smooth, and flaky, and the calicles appear 
as rings of small interseptal loculi. Round the rim of the lens-shaped stock the flaky reticulum 
is more open and delicate, and as it runs into the calicular skeleton it tapers along the smooth 
but incised septal flakes into the finest filaments, which run together to form an irregular 
columellar tangle. 
Nothing can be concluded as to the shape of the original stock from which the specimen 
became detached, There is no sign of any fracture. 
a. Zool. Dept. 1904. 10. 17. 55. 
‘A second series of Porites from Ramesvaram is a group of seven from the Pearl Bank. 
They are all attached to the upper shells of the pearl oyster—Margaritifera vulgaris. There 
is no means of associating them with any of the forms above described. We do not know 
