A. JEJ. Verrill — BermmUun and West Indian Reef Corals. 97 



thinl to tlie columella, which is well developed. The septa are a 

 little thickened at the wall ; their faces are only slightly granulated. 

 There are a few irregular small teeth ou their inner edges where best 

 preserved; upper ends are all Avorn off ; some have a paliforni tooth 

 at the base. The costa? are well developed, inosculating, with irreg- 

 ular exothecal dissepiments between them, as in (). annularis. But 

 in some vertical sections the Malls appear as narrow, solid structures, 

 (where unaltered) ; in the sections the columella region is loosely 

 filled with stout ascending trabeculae; the endotheca consists of small, 

 very thin, nearly horizontal dissepiments, inclining downward a little, 

 and often in two series. No. 42G6. 



Their origin is uncertain, but it appears to be West Indian. They 

 are in the same beach-worn state as several other types of West 

 Indian corals studied by Professor Dana. Apparently most AYest 

 Indian corals, in good condition, were scarce in American museums 

 at the time when he wrote his great work. 



It a])pears to be a small or somewhat dwarfed variety of O. annu- 

 laris. I have seen fresh s^^ecimens of a similar variety from the 

 Florida Reefs. 



This may well be identical with J/, stelhdata Ellis and Sol., but 

 the latter cannot be determined with an}^ certainty from the figure, 

 which represents a badly worn specimen. Its calicles, as figured, 

 are mostly even smaller than in Dana's type, and somewhat unequal 

 in size ; the walls appear to be as solid as in the latter ; the calicles 

 project slightly as in annularis ; 12 to 15 septa are figured, all per- 

 fect ; columella is as in a?inidaris. There is much more reason for 

 calling this a varietj^ of 0. annularis than thei'e is for identifying it 

 with Solenastra^a hyades, as Gregory has done. There is no evidence 

 that it is a tSolenastrcea,* 



* Gregory (op. cit., p. 273, 1895) adopts the name Solenastrcea stelhdata (ex. 

 Ellis and Sol.) for S'. hyades (Dana), and refers O. stellulata Dana and Heliastrcea 

 stelhdata Edw. and Haime to it as synonymous. It is probable that Edw. and 

 Haime knew their own genera and that their stellulata was not a Solenastra'u. To 

 me it seems perfectly identical with Dana's form, and only a variety of annularis. 



It seems strange that Gregory should have tried to restore such indetermin- 

 able and badly described species as the stellulata Ellis and Sol. and acropora 

 Linne, in new senses, while he rejected others, much better described, like M. 

 cavernosa 'Linne. M. cHvosa Ellis and Sol., because insufficiently characterized. 

 He says of cavernosa that the diagnosis "is so imperfect and inadequate that it 

 is absolutely useless." This remark, if tnie, would apply much better to the 

 diagnoses of acropora (see p. 95) and stellulata, which he adopts, though in 

 doing so he discards well established later names, based on good descriptions. 



Trans. Conn. Acad., Vol. XI. 7 November, 1901. 



