13 MISS RUTH M. HAKKISON ON NEW ALCTOXAEIA 



I.— INTRODUCTION. 



THE forms dealt -with in this paper come from three sources. The greater number of 

 Siphonogorgiidse (Siphonogorgia and Cliironeplrfhya) were collected by Capt. Bassett- 

 Smith, R.N., of H.M.S. ' Egeria,' in the Admiralty Islands, and presented by him to the 

 British Museum. A single and interesting species of Spongodes was collected by Capt. 

 Chimmo in the China Seas and presented to the Oxford Museum. The remainder of 

 the species described form a part of the first collections made in the Bay of Bengal by 

 the Trustees of the Calcutta Museum, and eventually entrusted to Professor G. C. Bourne. 

 I am glad to have this opportunity of expressing my thanks to Professor Bourne for 

 providing me with this material and also for placing at my disposal all the resources of 

 his laboratory, but more especially for his invaluable help and kindness during the 

 progress of my work. My thanks are also due to Professor F. Jeffrey Bell for allowing 

 me to examine the Spongodes and Siphonogorgiida? in the British Museum (a descrip- 

 tion of some new Siphonogorgiidse w r ill be found in the following report) ; to Professor 

 J. Arthur Thomson, of Aberdeen University, for the loan of two of his Spongodes ; and to 

 Dr. E. H. J. Schuster, Pellow of New College, Oxford, for the beautiful photographs on 

 Plate 3. 



The paper is confined to five species of Spongodes, all of which are new, two Slphono- 

 gorgia, of which one is new, ten Chironephthya, of which nine are new, and four 

 Solenocaulon. 



The difficulties in the identification of these forms have been very great, owing partly 

 to the fact that such numbers of new species have been created, frequently based on only 

 a single character, and partly because many of the descriptions and figures are quite 

 inadequate, and the same characters are seldom consistently described in the different 

 species. Sometimes stress is laid on the shape of a colony or the mode of branching ; 

 sometimes on the spicules of the stem or branches, special attention being paid to their 

 size, their character, or their arrangement ; or the armature of the polyp or the tentacles 

 may have been considered of primary importance. 



Kukentkal (30) has revised the classification of the genus Spongodes, and he bases his 

 main divisions on the mode of branching of the colony and the grouping of the polyps 

 on the terminal branches. He recognizes three types : — (1) Glonieratae : branching 

 slight ; polyp-bundles in smaller or larger rounded groups, surface of polyp-bearing part 

 consequently much broken up. (2) Divaricatse : branches much spread out and diverging 

 from one another ; polyps scattered on slender terminal twigs and not gathered together 

 in bundles. (3) Unibellatae : terminal twigs form umbels, with polyps borne on the 

 surface of the polyp-bearing portion, and never on stem or main branches. He makes 

 further subdivisions, using such characters as the predominance of the stem and main 

 branches over the polyp-bearing twigs in the development of the colony or vice versa ; 

 the regular or irregular outline of the polyp-bearing part ; the plane in which the polyp- 

 hearing part develops, or its shape. 



Having had an opportunity of inspecting the British Museum specimens, and judging 

 from the five species described below and the beautiful photographs which illustrate the 



