POLYNESIAN GONIOPORA. 37 



The chief characteristic of these Paris corals is their neatly circular calicles, like cylin- 

 drical punctures, very unlike what one would have gathered from the original figures of Quoy 

 and Gainiard, one of which represents a square calicle. They are 2-2" 5 mm. across; the 

 walls are built of very thick nodulated trabecule, in single zigzag or double rows. The septa 

 are rows of thick, short, sharp teeth, very broadly set upon the wall, and gradually lengthening 

 deep down in the fossa, where they felt and fuse together to form an open columellar tangle. 

 These points of difference, coupled with the facts — (1) that there was only one specimen of the 

 original, whereas Milne-Edwards and Haime apparently had three ; (2) that Milne-Edwards 

 speaks of a vertical section, whereas the original was a single complete stock ; and (3) that 

 Milne-Edwards merely says from " New Guinea," whereas the authors give a very definite 

 locality — make it fairly clear that the original type was not available when the great French 

 naturalists were working out their coral system. 



We shall have then to wait till new specimens are brought from the same spot before we 

 really know what the " Goniopora p>edunculata " of Quoy and Gaimard was really like. It is 

 true that the name has been given several times by different authors to very different members 

 of the genus, see G. Solomon Islands 4> P- 41, G. Great Barrier Beef 9, p. 55, and G. Philip- 

 pines 4> P- 70, and the remarks made under those headings. 



If the three specimens in the Paris Museum, said to be from New Guinea, are not the 

 same coral as the original " G. pedunculata," they ought to be described as a third form from 

 this locality, and the representatives of the genus known from New Guinea will be three 

 instead of two, as here recorded. 



2. Goniopora New Guinea ( 2)2- 

 [Exact locality not given ; Paris Museum.] 

 Goniopora viridis (parlim), M.-E. and H., Ann. Sci. Nat. (3) xvi. (1851) p. 40. 



Description. — A fragment of a steeply convex [ ? columnar] mass, the lower parts being 

 covered by an epithecal film. 



The calicles are very deep, polygonal, funnel-shaped at the top, shallower and cylindrical 

 at the sides. Walls very open and membranous, the vertical trabecule being joined by very 

 perforate membranes. The top edges ragged and very friable. The septa are pronounced, 

 long, close rows of spines, not large at the margin, but rapidly lengthening, until at a certain 

 point the lengthening ceases, and the septal rows descend straight to the bottom of the fossa, 

 where the spines meet and form a columellar tangle, some of the septal spines appearing to 

 fork. In the lateral calicles the columella becomes a rather solid nodulated reticulum. 



This description is taken from MS. notes made three years ago upon the specimen 

 No. 178« in the Paris Museum. It was quite different from the coral called by Quoy and 

 Gaimard "Astrcca viridis," with which Milne-Edwards united it as together forming his 

 " Goniopora viridis " (see G. Queen Charlotte Islands, p. 41) ; his remark that it resembles 

 G. lobata is also there commented upon. 



No. 178a in Paris Museum. 



