FRENCH GONIOPORjE. 143 



Basin 9 and 10, or on to G. Coutances 1 and 8. But, as may be seen in the figures, it 

 carries the lamellate character of the skeleton, obscured in the last, to an extreme. There 

 is no other resemblance between it and the other Paris Basin forms. It is quite peculiar 

 in the almost sudden transition between the shallow calicles with reticular walls arid the 

 deep calicles with smooth walls. In sections at the edges where, as stated, the skeletal 

 elements are thinner, the pores through the walls can be easily seen This shows that their 

 obliteration is secondary. On PI. XIV. fig. 14, showing the growth-form, one can see a small 

 free edge starting on the very tip of the stock in a manner suggesting unfavourable conditions ; 

 for such a free edge might be formed, for instance, to creep over sand which had perhaps risen 

 higher than usual around, and threatened to bury the stock. 



There is a second specimen with a coarse outer surface and broken sides, the whole being 

 something like a small segment of a regular hemisphere. It differs from the first specimen 

 in having fewer calicles showing the tall membranous walls — only the beginnings of such 

 walls can be seen. The septa show the same general characters, and it is clear that this is 

 only another growth of the same coral, and perhaps part of a more normal colony. Its label 

 only stated Middle Eocene, Paris, but it is structurally closely allied with the specimen above 

 described. 



a. A small conical colony, PL XIV. fig. 14, and PI. X°. figs. 5 and 6. Geol. Dept. E. 4826. 



b. A fragment, like a thin segment of a hemispherical stock, PI. X . fig. 8 ( x 5 times). 



138. Goniopora Coutances (2) 1. (PI. XK fig. 1 ; PI. XIV fig. 16.) 

 [Hauteville, Coutances, La Manche (Middle Eocene) ; British Museum.] 

 ? Litharcea desnoyersi, M.-E. & H., Hist. Nat. Coralliaires, iii. (1860) p. 188. 



Description. — Corallum forms irregularly nodulated fiuger-shaped masses, 5 to 6 cm. long, 

 and varying in thickness from 1 • 5 to 2 ■ 5 cm. These small thick columns seem to have 

 grown on the tips of organisms which have decayed, for in each of the two specimens there 

 is at one end an irregular epitheca-lined indentation running a few mm. into the coral in 

 two or three directions, as if the tip of the organism had been forked. 



The calicles are large, 4 mm., polygonal, deep. Walls thin, membranous, sharp edged, 

 and, seen laterally, jagged (unless corroded when they may be thick and smooth). The 18-20 

 septa are thin and membranous and project sharply right from the top edges of the walls ; 

 tbey slope with a concave curve into the base of the calicle, and as they descend their edges 

 may run out into long irregularly curved spines. In the base of the calicle these spines run 

 together to form a remarkable open reticulum, with large meshes between a few boldly 

 curling slightly flattened strands. 



This coral again is quite peculiar ; it is probably the same as that described by Milne- 

 Edwards as Litharcea desnoyersi, from this locality. It might easily suggest a fragment of a 

 thick " subdendroid growth," but there is every reason to believe that the stocks we have in 



