NO. 1401. GENERA OF SIMPLE FUNGID CORALS— VAUGHAN. 373 



says, in his Monographie des Pol3^piers Jurassiqiies de la Suisse: 

 " Je prends pour type des veritables Tliamnastrecs la Thamnastrma 

 aracknoides.^^ Felix, in his Anthozoen der Gosauschichten in den 

 Ostalpen, follows Pratz's characterization of T/uannastrsea. Gregory 

 was the first one to make a careful study of Le Sauvage's type-species, 

 and pul)lished a description and tigure of the septa." He says: "Three 

 septa of this specimen are shown on Plate ii a, tigure 8. The septa 

 are laminar and not trabicular. The figures which Pratz gives to 

 represent the septal structure of T/ia/nna.stra^a agree with those of 

 Dlmorphar8ea continua. * * * Hence the ThamnmtTS'a of Pratz 

 is an altogether difi'erent coral from the Thamnastnaa of Le Sauvage. 

 We must retain the name for the corals placed in it by Le Sauvage, 

 and for those later described species, which have the same septal 

 structure. Pratz's Thamnastrsea must be relegated to another family." 

 To another family ! And every species referred by Felix in his beau- 

 tiful work on the corals of the Gosau Cretaceous to the genus Tliarii- 

 nastviva is generically wrongl}^ identified. 



Blunders brought about by work like that of Pratz, in which type- 

 species and specific names are ignored, are numerous. TJi ariin aster ia 

 is given as an example. 



It can not be too strongly emphasized that a correct understanding 

 of genera is impossible unless the definitions are based prima rihj upon 

 a single type-species. 



REVIEW OF WORK ON THE GENERAL CLASSIFICATION OF THE FUNGIDS. 



Duncan published, in 1883, '' two articles on the Fungida — (1) Obser- 

 vations on the Madreporarian family (the Fungida:)., with especial 

 reference to the hard structures, and (2) On the structure of the 

 hard parts of the Lop/ioserina'. Li the first-mentioned article a his- 

 tory of the development of the knowledge of the Fungidx is given. 

 At the time of writing these articles Duncan apparently did not 

 know of Pratz's Ueber die verwandschaftlichen Beziehungen einiger 

 Korallengattungen. which was published during the previous year. 



Pratz's work is among the finest that has been done on the hard 

 parts of corals, and can be regarded as of epoch-making importance. 

 He unfortunately did not realize the importance of type-species and 

 fixing the particular species that he investigated. 



Pratz divided the Fungidce into five subfamilies — Pseudoastraeinse., 

 Pseudoagariciiiiv., Aga/'ici/ue, Funginse, and Merulinse. The Pseudo- 

 astraeinse were divided into the Pegulares and Irregulares. The fol- 

 lowing is the classification that he proposed: 



« Jurassic Fauna of Cutdi, The Corals, 1900, pp. 1:34, 135, pi. iia, fig. 3. 



fiJourn. Linn. Soc. London, Zool., XVII, pp. 137-162, i)ls. v, vi; pp. 302-319, 



pi. XIII. 



