MALAY ARCmPELAOO GONIOPORA. 7;; 



numbers of slightly projecting edges. In the earlier stages the stock appears to have rolled 

 halt' over, and in the further growth to have bent up again into the vertical. The edge of the 

 living layer seems to be about 4 cm. below the highest top. 



The calicles very uniform in size (2 mm.) and shape, being neat circular punctures, 

 3-4 mm. deep. The walls are everywhere a beautiful but stout membranous lattice-work 

 with large oval pores ; the edges are irregularly denticulate according as new pores are just 

 starting or are being arched over. The insides of the wall are roughened with low swellings, 

 or round-topped projections, which are only seen to be regular septal stria.' when looked at 

 from above. They then appear as 24 rows of low, uniform, blunt teeth round the lower parts 

 of the calicle, but not round the margin. Very deep down in the calicle the typical formula 

 can be made out, the short tertiaries even bending round to fuse with the secondaries. From 

 the central tangle a confused reticulum rises high up in the fossa, ending in a roughly stellate 

 grouping of bent and twisted flakes. This stellate arrangement is only seen from above, and 

 is due to the prominence of the secondaries. Only in the lateral calicles is the typical 

 symmetrical rosette formed. In the deep calicles the pali do not always reach the same level 

 of development. There is no central tubercle, but the tissue of the tangle rises to different 

 heights in the centre of the ring of pali. 



This is another of the forms in which the septa round the wall of the calicle are hardly 

 visible, and a central rosette rises up from the columellar tangle instead. A comparison 

 between this massive, more usual, form of Goniopora from only two fathoms, with the other 

 three forms from the China Seas, all from great depths and all quite remarkable in their form- 

 features, leads one to believe that the genus is still but little known. Our knowledge so far 

 is mainly confined to shallow-water forms. The range of its variations will be immensely 

 increased when a more thorough search lias been made for it below tide-marks. 



a. ' Zool. Dept, 89. 9. 24. 88. 



There is a thin, apparently very young, encrusting colony of Jfeliopora attached to this 

 specimen, which is interesting because the commensal worms which seem to be almost in- 

 variably associated with that coral are already present, thin as it is. 



44. Goniopora China Sea (5) 5. (PI. V. figs. 7 and 8 ; PI. XII. fig. 11.) 



[Macclesfield Bank, 32-42 fathoms, coll. Bassett-Smith ; British Museum. | 



Ehodaraai lagreeniil Baasett-Smith, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., vi. (1890) p. 457. 



Deteription. — The originally encrusting corallum appears to grow out laterally in long 

 thin stems which periodically flatten slightly and fork. Those specimens from the greater 

 depths seem to have thinner stems (6-10 mm.), which are then, owing to the size of the 

 calicles, very angular. The living layer of the thicker (1*5 cm.) and more rounded stems is 



L 



