DISTRIBUTION OF GROWTH-FORMS. 265 
P. North-West Australia 4. An oval mass, appearing to divide into lobes by cross 
valleys. 
P. Ceylon 1. A large, flat, reniform mass, with low symmetrical lobules. 
P. Ceylon 4. A convoluted stalked mass, which seems to have begun as a pear- 
shaped column. See also F. 
P. Ceylon 7. A large, deeply convoluted, spherical mass, supported on branches of 
Madrepora. 
P. Ceylon 18. The top convoluted surface of a globular (?) mass, sawn off. 
P. Red Sea 1. 
Here may be added the mulberry-shaped masses. There are four such stocks, swollen 
round their bases and then rising into a sub-conical mass, covered with small lobes 
or swellings nearly uniform in size and shape for each form. 
P. Ellice Islands +. | These two might perhaps be referred to section C, >. They 
P. New Hebrides 1. | are both accompanied by younger stocks, which suggest 
encrusting habits. 
P. Ceylon 13. | The most interesting feature of these two is the fact that each 
P. Singapore 2. ) separate lobe appears to be due to the expanding sheaf 
formation. In P. Singapore 2 the calicles at the top of each 
lobe open in a streaming lamellate network. 
c. Massive forms, not attributable to any clearly defined principle of growth (see observations 
below on the “amorphous ” forms) :— 
P. Ceylon 1-9. The forms presented by this series enable us to conclude that the 
original stocks settled upon some dead remains of other coral, and after a time fell 
over, and, in so doing, supplied more or less precarious foundations for their later 
developments. In no case did a specimen succeed in attaching itself again to 
the substratum. However large, it is always perched upon a central support, 
consisting of dead overturned previous stocks. In one case only (P. Ceylon 4) 
can the original stock be traced to a pear-shaped column. Such a form is also 
seen in one of the smaller specimens of this coral, and, what is most interesting, 
the lobes which characterise the largest stock all repeat the shape more or less 
closely. In other cases we can see somewhat the same surface specialisation in 
both the larger stock and smaller dead supporting stocks. But, except in the 
one case mentioned, we have hardly enough evidence to be able to reconstruct 
the original modification of the colony from the surface specialisations of the 
stocks themselves. 
P. Singapore 1. This form also seems to have early fallen over, and to have expanded 
laterally, with thick rounded edges, above the substratum, perched upon the 
dead former growths. As the central regions rise in height, they seem to send out 
tier after tier of these thick edges rolling down one over the other. 
P. Persian Gulf 1, A series of forms which seem to owe their present shapes to 
the accidents of deposition of sediment. If we may assume that the specimens 
most broken up into crooked distorted columns are those on which most 
sediment fell, then those least broken up may have represented the natural 
growth of the stock, viz. massive, rounded, with tall, ridge-like convolutions. 
2M 
