THE STRUCTURE AND RELATIONS OF TUBIPORA. 569 



B. The Relation between Tubipora and Fossil 

 f r ni s . 



If it be borne in mind that the only known living forms at 

 all allied to Tubipora (De Blainville (5), von Koch (10), 

 Hickson (8) ) are Cornularia and Clavularia, the former possess- 

 ing no skeleton at all, and the latter but a few scattered spicules, 

 it is evident that a long series of intermediate forms, some of 

 which must have possessed skeletons suitable in every way for 

 geological preservation, must have become extinct. Formerly 

 it was considered that the extinct Syringopora was a near ally 

 of Tubipora, and the older naturalists, such as Ellis (6) and 

 Cuvier (' Regne Animal'), placed them in the same family; 

 and this view is held now by such authorities as Zittel (' Hand- 

 buch der Palaeontologie'), G. von Koch(lO), Moseley (IT), and 

 others. Certain eminent palaeontologists, however, have re- 

 cently maintained, on grounds which I can hardly consider to 

 be entirely satisfactory, that Syringopora is not really allied to 

 Tubipora. Dr. Lindstrom (14) places Syringopora amongst the 

 Rugosa and Verrill, Nicholson and others place it amongst the 

 Zoantharia perforata. The renewed examination I have 

 made of the skeleton of Tubipora, carried on side by side with 

 the examination of the soft parts, leads me to believe that the 

 view of the older naturalists is the correct one, and that 

 Syringopora is really an Alcyonarian closely allied to Tubipora, 



When Professor Nicholson published his book on * Tabulate 

 Corals' (19) he seems to have considered that the position of 

 Syringopora amongst the Zoantharia perforata was defi- 

 nitely settled, for he says (p. 213; : " As to the recent genus 

 Tubipora it seems unnecessary to enter into any detailed dis- 

 cussion, as the known facts as to the internal structure of 

 Syringopora render any direct affinity between the two out of 

 the question." More recently, however, he has published a 

 paper which specially discusses the relationship between these 

 genera (20), and he urges the following three differences 

 between them as being of special importance : 



