327 



ALCYONARIA. 



I)T 



STUART 0. RIDLEY. 



Considerable light has already been thrown from four sources upon 

 the zoology of the Alcyonaria of the northern and eastern parts of 

 Australia — the districts which receive illustration from the present 

 fine collection. I refer to the collection made bj Mr. F. M. Rayner 

 in the ' Herald,' that made by Mr. J. B. Jukes in the u Fly, ' in those 

 of the Antarctic Expedition under Sir James Ross and the present 

 Sir J. Hooker, and that by the German circumnavigator}- expedi- 

 tion of the ' Gazelle.' In the case of the three British expeditions, 

 the Alcyonaria of chief interest were described by Dr. J. E. Gray 

 in the ' Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London'*, in the 

 'Annals and Magazine of Natural History'?, and in his 'Catalogue 

 of the Lithophytes or Stony Corals in the collection of the British 

 Museum' (London, 8vo, 1870). The specimens collected by the 

 ' Gazelle ' were described by Prof. T. Studer in the ' Monatsbericht 

 dcr Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin ' J. Studer*s is the 

 largest single contribution to the subject, and describes twenty-four 

 species from Australia, but only from western and north-western 

 localities. The information given by the older writers Lamarck. 

 Lamouroux, Milne-Edwards and Haime is almost all open to the 

 great objection of indetiniteness as to locality ; the single species 

 definitely described by MM. Quoy and Gaimard as collected by tho 

 ' Astrolabe ' in Australia is from the south. 



The present collection contains thirty-eight species, and may be 

 regarded as giving a good general insight into the character of the 

 Alcyonarian fauna of the shallow waters of the north-east coast of 

 Australia (coast of Queensland, up to and including Torres Straits), 

 and as adding in a most important manner to our knowledge of the 

 same fauna in the north-western part of this continent. I have 

 inserted notes on specimens already in the collection where the 

 localities were known with certainty; in particular a series receutly 

 obtained by exchange from the Australian Museum, Sydney, and 

 collected near Port Jackson and on the Queensland coast, has been 

 of service. 



Distribution. — The number of localities investigated, and the 



* 1862, pp. 27, 31. 34 ; 1872, p. 744. 



t Ser. 3, vol. v. p. 20; ser. 4, vol. ii. p. 441, iii. p. 21. 



J 1878, p. 633. 



