Verrill, Notes on Badiata. 541 



epitheca. Septa dentate, Ioav, widely spreading, in simple species very 

 numerous, in compound ones often but few. Interseptal chambers 

 crossed by transverse trabiculoe. Costas echinulate, often spinose. 



In some compound genera the polyps are of two or more kinds, the 

 lateral or secondary ones often very imperfectly developed, but the 

 central, primaiy polyp, even in these, has the essential structure of 

 the typical forms. 



Fungia Lamarck. 

 Fungia (pars) Lamarck, Syst. des aniraaux sans vert., p. 369 1 801 ; Hist. Anim. sans 



vert., ii, p. 236. 1816; 2nd ed., p. 369, 1836; Ehrenberg, Corall.des rotlien Meere-, 



p. 48, 1834. 

 Fungia Dana, Zoophytes U. S. Expl. Exp., p. 287, 1846; Edw. and Haime, Ann. des 



Sci. nat., 3e ser, xv, p. 76, 1851 ; Coralliaries, iii, p. 5, 1860. 



Corallum simple, circular or nearly so, while young turbinate and 

 attached by a narrow base ; the outtn- margin growing out^\':ird 

 rapidly and becoming horizontal or revolute, the pedicle breaks oif 

 and the coral afterward remains free, resting upon the flat or concave 

 basal surface, formed by the wall, which in life is completely covered 

 by a lime-secreting membrane, l)y which the scar of adherence is soon 

 obliterated. Wall more or less perforated by irregular openings, 

 especially near the margin, covered with radiating cost:e, which arc 

 denticulate or even spinose. Septa very numerous, unequal; the 

 principal ones high and thickened near the central fosette, those of 

 the later cycles broadest near the margin, becoming thin and uniting 

 together toward their inner edges, usually with a more or less marked 

 tentacular tooth at the points where they become narrower. Central 

 fosette small. Columella little developed, trabicular. 



This genus is represented by many large and fine species, several of 

 them becoming more than a foot in diameter, in the Indo-Pacific 

 fauna. These species abound in the shallow lagoons of the Feejee 

 and Society Islands, Kingsmills, Phillipines, and thi'oughout the tropi- 

 cal parts of the central Pacific and Indian Oceans, extending on the 

 coast of Africa from Zanzibar to the coral reefs of the Red Sea. In 

 the Atlantic Ocean none have hitherto been found, unless a small un- 

 described species, dredged by Mr. Pourtales, of the U. S. Coast Sur- 

 vey, at a great depth between Floiida and Cuba, really belongs to 

 this genus. 



The following is remarkable as the only species hitherto discovered 

 on the Pacific coast of America. It appears to be very local in its 

 habitat, having been as yet found only at one small island. 



