REPORT ON CORALS—HYDROCORALLINE. 33 
The ccenostea of several species of the family have been known to science from early 
times. The earliest known species, according to MM. Milne-Edwards and Haime, seems 
to have been Stylaster flabelliformis, the Corail blanc of Seba (Thesaurus, 11. 204, pl. ex. 
fig. 10, 1758), while Stylaster roseus and Distichopora violacea were described under the 
general genus Madrepora, by Pallas, in 1766. 
Gray gave the name Stylaster to the genus in 1831 (Zool. Miscell., p. 36), and 
described the genus Errina in 1835 (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1835, p. 35). Distichopora was 
named by Lamarck, Allopora by Ehrenberg in 1834, and Cryptohelia was described by 
MM. Milne-Edwards and Haime in 1849. 
Pourtalés has added a new genus to the family, viz., Pliobothrus, as one of the results 
of the United States’ deep-sea dredging operations, and Saville Kent another, Stenohelia, 
whilst I have added five genera, viz., Sporadopora, Spinopora, Conopora, and Astylus, 
dredged by H.M.S. Challenger, and Labiopora, wrongly described by Gray as a Bryozoon 
under the name Porella, 
Dr Edward Griffe of Zurich found a species of Distichopora living at Fiji. It grows 
only on the outermost reef border of Ovalau Island, close to the surf, attaching itself in 
dark hollows in old dead Madrepore blocks. It never grows in the light, and is rapidly 
bleached by the action of sunlight. Griiffe observed the large round cells in the 
ampulle, and conjectured that they were ova, but he could not obtain a view of the 
zooids, although he examined specimens brought fresh from the sea. He concluded that 
Distichopora was probably a Bryozoon.* 
The only extant account of the soft parts of any Stylasterid is that of the animals 
of Allopora norwegica by G. O. Sars.” 
Sars kept a succession of living specimens of the coral in fresh sea water, but never 
got the animals to expand so as to raise themselves above the level of the stellate 
openings. Nevertheless he saw clearly with lenses the tips of the opaque white tentacles 
in the angles between the so-called incomplete septa, which tips were usually more ar less 
bent inwards towards the centre. He also saw deep down in the bottom of the calicle a 
similarly opaque white knot-shaped projection. This was all that could be seen in the 
fresh living animals. Specimens were, however, preserved in spirit and subsequently 
examined, and the conclusion was come to that the animal was essentially different from 
the rest of corals, and probably did not belong to the Anthozoa at all, but rather to the 
Hydrozoa. 
By means of lucky breakings through of the stony-hard but nevertheless porous coral, 
Sars was able to obtain some little view of the general form of the polyps and their 
1 Dr E. Griffe, Notizen iiber die Faune der Viti Inseln. Verh. und der K.K. Zool. Bot. Gesell in Wien, xvi. 
Bd., 1866, 1585. 
2G. 0. Sars, Bidrag til Kundskaben om Dyrelivet paa vore Havbanker. Forh, i Videnskabs Selskabet, i 
Christiana, 1872, p. 115. 
(ZOOL, CHALL, EXP,—PART ViI,—1880.) G5 
