THE ANNALS 



AND 



MAGAZINE OF NAT[JRAL HISTORY 



[SEVEN'TH SERIES.] 



" per litora spargite museum, 



Naiades, et circum vitreos considite fontes; 

 Pollice virgineo teneros hie carpite flores : 

 Floribus et pietuin, divae, replete canistrum. 

 At V09, o N"ym|ili8e Craterides, ite sub undas ; 

 Ite, recurvato variata eorallia truneo 

 Vellite muscosis e rupibus, et mihi conchas 

 Ferte, De<e pelajji, et pingui couchylia succo." 



N.PartheiiiiGianitef/iisi, Eyl. 1, 



No. 73. JANUARY 1904. 



I. — The Prototheca of the Madreporaria, -with Special 

 Beference to the Qeneva Calostylis, Linds., and Moseleya, 

 Qaekh. By Henry M. Bernard, M.A. Cantab., F.L.'S. 



[Plate I.] 



The task I have set myself is to sketch what appears to have 

 been the leading features in the evolution of the Madrepo- 

 rarian skeleton. The researches on which the arguments are 

 based have been almost entirely limited to the skeleton, not 

 because the importance of a close study of the soft parts is 

 not recognized, but because, for the attainment of accurate 

 results, the widest possible survey of homologous structures is 

 indispensable. This condition can never be supplied by the 

 soft parts. They can at the most be studied in a few recent 

 specimens, whereas the vast majority of tiie forms presented 

 by the Madreporarian system are fossil. Further, let me 

 add in passing that I do not believe that the study of the 

 individual development of a few living forms can by itself 

 establish anything certain about the past history of the group, 

 for the simple reason that we cannot tell whether any special 



Ann. & Mag. N. Hist. Ser. 7. Vol. xiii. 1 



