Brachiopods in the Persian Gulf. AT 
both regions. He more especially compares the species on 
the East-African coast, and regards them as identical with 
species found in the Atlantic. 
Alcock * points out that the sublittoral (25-250 fath.) 
genera and species of Paguride inhabiting the Indian seas 
appear to be most closely related to the sublittoral hermits of 
the West Indies and of the north-west coast of Africa and its 
outlying islands, 
As pointed out by Prof. 8. J. Hickson +, Alcock, in his 
comments on the deep-sea Madreporaria of the Indian Ocean, 
ealls attention to the ‘ many intimate affinities of the fauna 
of moderate depths of the Indian seas with the North-Atlantic 
fauna,’ %ind considers them “to be sufficient to suggest a 
direct sea-connection, in the past, between the Atlantic and 
Indian Oceans, and the case of Caryophyllia communis *and 
Flabellum laeindatum would indicate that the connection 
was by way of the Mediterranean.” Among the species of 
Madreporarian corals obtained by Townsend in the Persian 
Gulf, and described by Miss R. Harrison and Professor 8. J. 
Hickson f, is one, Pyrophyllia inflata, which appears to 
provide even stronger evidence of the truth of Alcock’s 
hypothesis, and to suggest a former connection of the Gulf 
with the Mediterranean Sea. Pyrophyllia is related to the 
recent Guynia annulata, Duncan, from the Adventure Bank, 
in the Mediterranean (92 fath.), and to the extinct genus 
Conosmilia, found in ‘Tertiary deposits of Australia. Among 
the other corals found in the Persian Gulf is a species of 
Trematotrochus (T. zelandie), identical with a recent coral 
from Cook’s Strait, New Zealand, and closely related to 
species of the same genus from the Tertiary deposits of 
Australia, and to a recent form found in St. Vincent Gulf 
and Backstairs Passage, S. Australia, at depths of from 15 to 
22 fathoms. The above facts are significant in connection 
with the close relationship which seems to exist between 
certain of the Brachiopod genera of Australia-New Zealand 
on the one hand, and Atlantic—Mediterranean on the other. 
This point has recently been emphasized by Thomson §, and 
want of space precludes a discussion here ; but it may be of 
interest to mention that the Brachiopod genera concerned are 
* Alcock, “ Paguride” in ‘The Fauna and Geography of the Maldive 
and Laceadive Archipelagos,’ ed. by J. Stanley Gardiner, vol. ii, 1903- 
1906, p. 828. 
+ Hickson, op. cit. 1911, p. 1038. 
} Id. ibid. pp. 1020, 1038-1039, 
§ Thomson, op. cit, 1918, p. 57. 
