236 A, E. Verrill—The Bermuda Islands; Coral Reefs. 
round and a little prominent, though varying in this respect. When 
not so well developed, the clusters of branches are irregular and 
often misshapen or straggling. The main branches are often an inch 
or more in diameter. 
When living these corals are dull yellow or ocher-yellow to 
brownish yellow; the soft upper bodies of the expanded polyps are 
pale yellow, or translucent with whitish lines, and rise high above the 
calicles. The slender tentacles are specked and tipped with flake- 
white, due to raised clusters of cnide. 
The figures 2-4, on pl. i, of L. Agassiz, Florida Reefs, which 
Pourtalés referred to O. varicosa, belong, without much doubt, to 
this species, and my fig. 89 is only slightly altered from his fig. 2. 
Citas,” 
Figure 89.—Oculina diffusa, showing polyps in partial and full expansion. 
From colored figure by A. H. V., altered from L. Agassiz. 
It agrees better with the polyps of O. diffusa, as seen by me at 
Bermuda, than with either of the other species, though the differ- 
ences between them are only slight, when seen in the corresponding 
states of expansion. However, this figure was drawn by Mr. Burk- 
hardt from a living specimen in Florida, while he was artist for 
Prof. L. Agassiz on his visit to Florida to study the reefs. O. diffusa 
is the only Oculina that is ordinarily found on the Florida reefs and 
Keys, where it is abundant, and therefore it would naturally have 
been the species figured while living. Pourtalés himself states (op. 
cit., p. 66) that O. varicosa has not been found on the Florida reefs 
to his knowledge. I can say the same. The specimens of the coral 
of O. varicosa on the same plates were all from Bermuda. 
It is a common coral throughout the West Indies and Florida 
Keys, in sheltered places, 
