INTRODUCTION. 



In compliance with a request from Dr. Hector, the eminent 

 Director of the Geological Survey of New Zealand, I liave 

 examined the collection of Tertiary corals and Bryozoa exhibited 

 in the New Zealand Court of the Sydney International Ex- 

 hibition. This collection does not comprise the whole of the 

 fossil corals exhibited or in the Miiseum of the Survey at 

 Wellington, New Zealand, but only the obviously distinct 

 species, so that, as the fine points of distinction which separate 

 not only species but genei'a would not be detected except by 

 experts, it may be concluded that other species may still remain 

 in the Museum. 



A few words on the subject of the extratropical corals of 

 the Southern Hemisphere, both living and fossil, may not 

 be out of place as an introduction to what I shall have to 

 say with reference to the general features of this collection. 

 Of the living corals comparatively little is known either in 

 Australia or New Zealand. Before a complete study can be 

 made, dredging must be carried on extensively, and a real know- 

 ledge obtained of what are the organisms of our seas at moderate 

 distances from the shore. Outside the tropical or the reef- 

 building area, which sometimes extends considerably beyond the 

 tropics, we find but few true corals. These are never of the 

 reef -building kind. They are either simple corals, which are 

 free, or, as single individuals, are rooted on the bottom of the 

 deep ; or they are compound organisms consisting of corallites, 

 forming a spreading or branching mass. The latter are not 

 large. In Australia they are confined, as far as we know, to 

 two or three species of Plesiastrcea, one or two species of Amphi- 

 helia, with some encrusting members of the family Astrangiaceee. 

 The simple corals are more numerous. In Australia they are 

 of a peculiar kind, the genus Bahinophyllia, with porous walls 

 and intricate interlocked septa, predominating. The living coral 



