79 
that genus when it was shown to them, and I have therefore adopted 
their opinion until more perfect specimens are found to verify or cor- 
rect our knowledge. It may be described as follows :— 
FiaseLttum MacAnprewi. (Radiata, Pl. II.) 
Coral expanded, subcircular? ; outline irregular, torn, with acute 
marginal processes ; outer surface smooth, polished, as if varnished ; 
septa thin, far apart, very finely crenulated on the edge in three 
series ; the primary plates large, the secondary nearly as large, but 
much more narrow near the centre; the tertiary plates small, very 
narrow. 
Hab. North Sea. 
The single imperfect specimen here described was found about 
twenty-five miles from East Shetland, in ninety fathoms water. 
Mr. MacAndrew has kindly presented the specimen to the British 
Museum collection. 
M. Milne-Edwards and M. Haime, in their monograph of the genus 
Flabellum, published in the ‘ Annales des Sciences Naturelles,’ ix. 
p- 256 (in 1848), describe forty-three species, and divide them into 
three sections, thus :— 
a. Coral becoming free by the progress of age. 
* Coral becoming free by the cessation of the adherence of the 
pedicel—Flabellines pedicellés. 
** Coral becoming free by the rupture of its base—F’. tronquées. 
6. Coral always fixed by its enlarged base—F. fixées. 
The last section is very distinct from the two former, and might 
almost form a separate genus, for which I should be inclined to retain 
Dana’s name of Euphyllia. 
The other two sections are separated from one another by very 
slight characters, which I believe are not even sufficient to separate 
the specimens of the same species, for some specimens from the same 
localities retain their narrow base, while in others this part is more or 
less truncated. 
Indeed from the numerous specimens of this genus which I have 
been enabled to examine in the Japanese boxes which are sent to the 
Canton market, and from thence to London, and others brought from 
Northern China by Mr. Fortune, I have little doubt that the species 
is very variable. I had come to this conclusion, and arranged all the 
specimens together in one tray in the British Museum, before Messrs. 
Milne-Edwards and Haime came to examine the corals in the Museum 
for description in their papers in the ‘Annales des Sciences Naturelles’ 
for 1848 ; and the examination of the characters given by these natu- 
ralists for their several species has not induced me to change my 
opinion, which has, on the contrary, been strengthened by a second 
comparison. ; 
_ I may state that we have in the British Museum two very distinct 
recent species:—1. Flabellum affine, Edwards and Haime, n. 31. 
t. 8. f. 10, from Australia, which has very close plates. 2. Flabel- 
lum Pavoninum, n. 1, from Japan and North China. And Milne- 
Edwards and M. Haime have described another from the Falkland 
