414 Mr. A. H. Hassail on the genus Lepralia. 



specimens, some mine and others Mr. Landsborough^s, were 

 sent to Dr. Johnston, who repHed that he had long been ac- 

 quainted with the Tuhulipora as a British species, and that he 

 considered it to be the Madrepora verrucaria of Otho Fabri- 

 cius and the TnbuHpor'a Orbiculus o£ Lamarck. These synonyms 

 may be correct, but it is by no means clear that they are so. 

 Milne Edwards considers the Madrepora verrucaria of Otho 

 Fabricius, described in the ' Fauna Groenlandica,^ p. 430, as an 

 injured condition of his T. verrucaria, and cites the description 

 of Otho Fabricius in proof of his statement. The Tubulipora 

 Orbiculus of Lamarck, Milne Edwards also regai'ds as his T. 

 verrucaria. Lamarck, in support of his description, refers 

 to two figures which Milne Edwards says relate evidently to 

 another genus, that of Cellepora. I have myself examined 

 both these figures : that in plate 100. fig. 7- of that gigantic 

 work, Seba's ^Thesaurus,' does certainly represent a Tubu- 

 lipora, but of what species the figure is not sufficiently ac- 

 curate to determine ; but the second, in Esper's ' Pflanzen- 

 thiere, Madrep.,' pi. 17, fig- B, C, would appear to be a Celle- 

 pora, as Milne Edwards says, probably C. pumicosa. 



Lamarck thus defines his Tubulipora Orbiculus : — 



" Cellulis tubulosis in orbiculum hemisphericum aggregatis, 

 osculo subdentato." 



And in the notes appended to the definition he further 

 observes : — " This species presents hemispherical and convex 

 masses, with tubes straight, unattached and distinct in their 

 superior half, and whose orifice is sometimes armed with from 

 one to three teeth, and sometimes presents not one." 



Now none of the many specimens of the Tubulipora of which 

 I have specimens are hemispherical or anything approaching 

 such a figure ; they are but little raised from the surface of their 

 growth ; the cells are not unattached and distinct, but closely 

 aggregated, the wall of one tube forming a portion of that of 

 another, nor are their apertures ever smooth and toothless ; 

 moreover, the cells in the centre of each disc are far less distinct 

 and much more closely approximated than those near the cir- 

 cumference, in this also differing from Lamarck's description. 



Neither does the description of the Madrepora verrucaria 

 of Otho Fabricius coiTespond entirely with the Tubulipora of 

 Avhich I am writing. Thus he says, " Li aliis (exemplis) inter- 

 stitia radiorum Integra, in aliis et quidem majoribus porosa 

 quasi reticulata." 



I have already said that there are no interstices between 

 the tubes in the Tubulipora to which 1 refer. 



March 26, 1812. 



