356 COLLECTIONS FROM MELANESIA. 



Obs. The differences between this specimen and the types in the 

 form of the verrucse appear to be due to their more expanded condi- 

 tion at time of death in this than in the type specimens. Unfortu- 

 nately no spirit-specimens have as yet reached the Museum. 



MELITHjEIDJE. 



Melithseacese, Kolliker, Icones Histiol. p. 142. 



.Melithseadfle, Mopselladre, and Elliselladae, Gray, Cat. Lithoph. Brit. 

 Mus. (1870) pp. 3, 5,24. 



The two first-named of Dr. Gray's families cannot possibly be 

 maintained distinct from each other, as of the genera which he has 

 placed in the first, Meliihaea (Melitodes) includes, as is shown by a 

 careful study of the spicular characters, Anicella, which he has placed 

 in the second ; the only distinctive character by which the Meli- 

 tbseadae are alleged to be separated from the Mopsellida?, viz. the 

 perforation by the longitudinal ccenenchymal canals of the lower 

 joints of the hard axis, is exhibited also by four out of the five 

 genera which make up the latter family; this may readily be ascer- 

 tained by examination of adult specimens representing these genera. 

 For this reason I have been obliged to relinquish this character in 

 the separation of the genera, except in the case of Clathraria and 

 the new genus Psilacabaria, and have in this Eeport reconsidered 

 the genera and species involved, and after comparing them with the 

 rich collection already in the national museum, embracing almost 

 every known species, arranged them mainly according to spicular 

 characters, thus following the plan which has been adopted with 

 such success in other groups of the Alcyonaria by Kolliker and 

 Verrill. The Ellisellada?, Gray, include a Melithaeid {Wrightella), 



The family thus constituted is represented in the present col- 

 lection by the proportionally large number of six species, of which 

 four are new, one appearing to be generically distinct from all other 

 known forms, and remarkable further for its pure white colour and 

 slight habit, unexampled in the family. The existence of a dimor- 

 phism of the zooids, long known to obtain in the Pennatulida, and 

 treated of in the Alcyoniidae (Eeteroxenia, Kolliker ; Sarcophytum, 

 Moseley, Eeport etc. 'Challenger,' vol. i. p. 118), and by Prof. Moseley 

 in the Coralliidse (Quart. Journ. Micr. Science, n. s. vol. xxii. p. 396), 

 and stated by Hickson (Quart. Journ. Sci. 1883, Oct., p. 574) to occur 

 in the Briareidae (JParagorgia), a fact which I am able to confirm 

 from specimens in the British Museum, was also pointed out for the 

 first time in the present family by Mr. Hickson, from information with 

 which I furnished him, viz. in a new species (M. albitincta) of the 

 genus Melitodes. In this species, the only one of between 20 and 30 

 Bpecies of the family in which I have observed it, this phenomenon 

 occurs in a somewhat remarkable manner, partly owing to which I 

 had at first overlooked it ; but on my attention being called by the 

 artist, Air. Highley, to certain projections on some of the branches, 

 larger than the ordinary verruca?, 1 examined the corallum more 



