THE ANNALS 



A N I) 



MAGAZINE OF NATURAL HISTORY. 



SEVENTH SERIES.] 



" per litora spargite museum, 



Naiades, et circum vitreos considite fontes : 

 Polliee virgineo teneros hie carpite flores: 

 Floribus et pietum. divas, replete canistrum. 

 At vos, o NVmphae Craterides, ite sub undas ; 

 Ite, reeurvato variata corallia trunco 

 Vellite museosis e rupibus, et mihi conchas 

 Ferte, Dex pelagi, et pingui conchylia succo." 



N.PuftheniiGianuettasi, Eul. 1. 



No. 73. JANUARY 1904. 



I. — The Prototheca of the Madreporaria, luith Special 

 Reference to the Genera Calostylis, Linds., and Moseleya, 

 Quelch. 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 the 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 



