RED SEA AND EGYPTIAN PORITES. 245 
where he said the species was common. I have studied all the Porites labelled dutea in the 
Paris Museum, to some of which at least he must have been referring, but I cannot find any 
at all which correspond with the old description. 
If this is the history of the Milne-Edwards species “/wtea,’” what, we ask, can be the value 
of the many “identifications” with it which have been made since by others who have also not 
seen their way to escape from these ensnaring names ? 
A third case equally puzzling is supplied by the Porites arenosa, which Milne-Edwards 
in 1860 announced as from the Red Sea, as well as from the Seychelles, l’ile Bourbon, Vanikoro, 
ete. If we wish to know on what actual specimen the description is founded, we turn to 
the Ann. Sci. Nat. of 1851, xvi. p. 29, and find that it referred to some specimen of Quoy and 
Gaimard, and also to specimens in the Paris Museum, which Lamarck had called by the 
equivalent name arenacea. They added, “Lamarck Vindique probablement 4 tort comme 
provenant de la mer rouge et de l’océan indien.” But Lamarck’s type is apparently still 
preserved, for in the Paris Museum there is a very old and worn specimen (Z 180 d), which 
closely resembles one of the specimens in the possession of the National Collection from the 
Pearl Bank, Ramesvaram. It not only encrusts a pearl shell, but the tips of the walls are 
flat, and striated across, cf. P. Ceylon 12. Lamarck’s indication of the locality was, therefore, 
not so wrong as Milne-Edwards and Haime suggested. There are two other specimens of 
arenacea in the Paris Museum, said to belong to Lamarck’s collection, but I cannot discover 
reference to them in any of the descriptions. 
Besides the reference to Lamarck’s specimen or specimens, Milne-Edwards and Haime 
referred primarily to Quoy and Gaimard, and we find that there still exists a specimen called 
arenosa from Vanikoro, labelled Quoy and Gaimard (Z 180 6). This, one would think, should 
be the actual specimen described in the Mon. des Poritides in 1851. But from my notes I 
gather that the calicles of that specimen are from 0°75 to 0:8 mm., while in the description 
the diameter of the larger calicles is given as 1*°5 mm. The description does not, therefore, 
refer to Quoy and Gaimard’s specimen. Further, a glance at Esper’s original figure shows that 
the description did not refer to that. I have, therefore, been totally unable to find out what 
the actual specimen described was. Nor do I believe that it referred to any of the specimens 
now labelled arenosa from the Red Sea, because that locality is not given in the Mon. des 
Poritides in which the description first appeared. 
These are but samples of the confusion which has resulted from the reckless application 
of well-known names, a confusion which is worse confounded with every new systematic work 
in which the genus is dealt with on old lines. 
EGYPTIAN FOSSIL FORMS. 
There can be little doubt that the Egyptian Tertiary formations will ultimately yield a rich 
harvest of Tertiary Poritids. For besides the form described by Dr. Felix as Porites pusilla, 
he mentions others which he identified with Catullo’s P. ramosa, Reuss’ P. polystyla, and 
Defrance’s P. incrustans. 
With reference to the three last named, Catullo’s ramosa was apparently a Goniopora, see 
Vol. IV. p. 107. P. polystyla Reuss, is a remarkable form, as to the affinities of which I am 
