REPORT ON CORALS—DEEP-SEA MADIEPORARIA., 197 
in outline, with their walls rising to a height of about 3 or 4 mm. above the basal mass. 
Septa often irregular, owing to the constant fission of the calicles, but in the rounded 
calicles disposed with more or less regularity in six systems and four cycles, with some 
septa of a fifth cycle. Quaternary septa prominent and much larger than the tertiaries, 
which lie far back on the sides of the fossa, sometimes with their inner margins confluent 
in the deeper parts of the fossa over the margins of the tertiaries. Fossa moderately 
deep, with a spongy mass at its bottom not at all prominent representing the columella. 
This species differs from Heteropsammnua michelini in no point of importance excepting 
in being compound, Heteropsammia michelini in many specimens shows a tendency in 
the calicles to divide into two, and Heteropsammia cochlea (Spengler), from Ceylon, 
bears two calicles, sometimes three imperfect ones. I have examined specimens in the 
British Museum of this species, and it obviously forms a simple stepping-stone between 
Feteropsammia michelini and the present form. It would be absurd to place the present 
form and LHeteropsamnua cochlea in a genus apart from LHeteropsammia michelini 
because of their compound nature. The characters of MM. Milne-Edwards and Haimes’ 
genus must be modified to include compound forms as well as simple. I can find no 
evidence in the adult coralla of the present species of any remains of a spiral shell within 
the basal mass. If a shell were originally present, as is quite possible, it has become 
entirely absorbed. The walls of the spiral chamber occupied by the Sipunculid are com- 
posed‘of bare hard coral tissue. In decalcified spirit specimens, moreover, no trace of 
any membranous tissue was seen corresponding with the spiral cavity. The Sipunculid 
was left hanging in a simple spiral cavity excavated within the spongy ccenenchymal 
mass of soft tissue. Semper, in his account of the [Zeterocyathi and Heteropsammias 
of the Philippimes, comes to the same conclusion as to the absence of a spiral shell in 
Heteropsamnua and all species of Heterocyathus, excepting [Heterocyathus parasiticus. 
He says, “the Sipunculid lives always only in a cavity formed by itself in the base of the 
coral.” Semper described in the same paper two new species of Heteropsammia obtained 
by him off the Philippine coast, but curiously enough seems to have met with no com- 
pound specimens. He remarks on the interest of Verrill’s Heteropsammia geminata 
from Burmah (Amer. Jour. of Science and Arts, vol. xlix., 1870), which has two calicles. 
Milne-Edwards’ two genera [eteropsammia and Stephanoseris are clearly most closely 
allied, and should be merged into one. The presence of synapticulee in the latter genus is 
a matter of small importance. 
Extreme length of the base of the largest specimen, 20 mm. Extreme breadth of the 
base, 15 mm. Extreme height of the corallum, 16 mm. Diameter of one of the nearly 
circular calicles, 8 mm. 
Numerous specimens dredged. Off Samboangan, Mindanao Island, Philippine 
Islands. 10 fathoms. 
1 ©, Semper, Ueber Generationswechsel bei Steinkorallen, &c., Z. fur Wiss. Zoologie, Bd. xxii. 1872, s. 255, u. 264. 
