DESCRIPTION OF CHALK CORALS. 261 
verging as well as anastomosing band composed of irregular solid fibres. In its 
general mode of growth and viewed by the unassisted eye it resembles some 
species of Aulopora'; but the digestive organs, instead of being lodged as in that 
genus, in elongated tubes, which occupy the structural intervals between the 
circular openings, were confined to the round depressions of limited depth, the 
intermediate bands being solid, and having no visible communication with the 
cavities. In one respect, however, there was possibly an important agreement 
between the polype of the chalk fossil and that of Aulopora. From the eight in- 
dentations in the abdominal hollows little doubt can be entertained, that the 
former belonged to the class Anthozoa; and M. Milne-Edwards? has stated his 
belief, that Aulopora was more nearly allied to Cornularia than to any other 
zoophyte, and that it is in consequence referable to the same class*®. In the 
visceral cavities and fibrous or ribbed intervals, resemblances exist with Ao- 
gaster cretacea ; but the investing animal matter ranging between those receptacles 
could not apparently have possessed similar functions to that which surrounded 
Awogaster, the bands bearing no signs of additions or changes after maturity ; 
and so far as the specimen extended, no indications of obliteration were noticed 
in the cavities themselves. The attached mode of growth would necessarily pre- 
clude an articular composition. 
Not being aware of any established genus with characters similar to those 
mentioned above, the describer suggests that the extinct coral might be distin- 
guished by the term Epiphaxum from émic adnascens and a€wy axis, in allusion 
to the attached mode of growth. 
Epiphaxum, g. 0. 
Axis attached throughout, formed of solid fibres; visceral cavities seated in 
the axis and provided with eight indentations or blunt lamelle ; investing layer 
unknown. 
Epipharum auloporoides, sp.n. (Tab. XVIII. figs. 35, 36 & 37.) 
Axis elongated, slightly convex, divergent and anastomosed, component fibres 
" Consult Goldfuss, Petref. pl. 29. f.1 a, 1 6. 
* Annales des Sciences Nat., 2nde série, Zool., tome ix., or Recherches sur les Polypes, Mém. sur 
les Crisies, &c. p. 15: also remarks on Awlopora, 2nd edit. 1836, Lamarck, t. ii. p. 323. 
* Consult M. Milne-Edwards’s notice of the animal of Cornularia rugosa, Lamk. t. ii. p. 128. 
2M 
