39 



Color. The entire colony is a dark brick red. Axis darker. In other specimens the 

 general surface of the smaller branches is yellow, with scarlet verruciform calyces, the back 

 and sides being bright yellow. 



General distribution. The Indian Ocean, which is the type locality. 



2. Melitodes flabelhim Thomson and Mackinnon. 



Melitodes flabellum Thomson and Mackinnon. Alcyonaria of the Percy Sladen Trust Expedition, 

 Part II, 1910, p. 198. 



Stat. 164. i42'-5 S., I3o47'.5 E. 32 meters. Sand, small stones and shells. 



Stat. 261. Elat, West coast of Great Kei Island. 27 meters. Mud. 



Stat. 273. Anchorage off Pulu Jedan, East coast of Aru Islands. 13 meters. Sand and shells. 



Stat. 305. Mid Channel in Solor Strait, off Kampong Menanga. 113 meters. Stony. 



Stat. 310. 83o'S., ii97'.5 E. 73 meters. Sand, with few pieces of dead coral. 



Colony strictly flabellate and reticulate, 19.5 cm. long and with a spread of 12.5 cm. 

 The main stem is nearly round, the horny joints (internodes) being 5 mm. in diameter and 

 the calcareous nodes 3.5 mm. in diameter. The internodes are about 5 mm. long, and the 

 nodes 3 to 4 mm. The branches are borne on the internodes and are typically alternate and 

 lateral in position. From its basal 6.5 cm. the stem gives off occasional irregular branchlets 

 which do not form a part of the flabellate structure. Above this point the stem soon dissipates 

 itself in a reticulate mass of branches and branchlets, the branching being, in general, dicho- 

 tomous. In the fan the internodes are usually about 9 mm. in length and i mm. in diameter; 

 while the nodes are triangular, as a rule, the triangle being about 2 mm. long and nearly 

 equilateral. Most of the branchlets terminate in U-shaped bifurcations on the margins of the 

 fan. Nearly all of the calyces are lateral in position, forming a close-set row on each side of 

 the branches and twigs. In places the row is quite even, but in others it is decidedly zigzag. 



The individual calyces are quite small, rather low, dome-shaped verrucae, averaging 

 less than .5 mm. in height and slightly over i mm. in diameter, the gradually sloping wall of 

 one meeting that of its neighbor so as to give a scalloped appearance to the margins of the 

 branches, when viewed from above. Their apertures are almost completely closed, in the 

 specimen described, and their walls are filled with heavily tuberculated spindles and spiny clubs 

 which form an indistinct circlet of prominences around the margins. 



The polyps are minute, but show a well defined collaret composed of one or two rows 

 of bent spindles and a pseudo-operculum of similar spindles arranged en chevron basally 

 and disposed longitudinally on distal parts of tentacles ; the whole forming a symmetrical 

 rosette when viewed from above. 



Spicules. Those of the axis are small, smooth, bar-like forms aggregated together 

 into a felted mass which is less dense in the horny and more dense in the calcareous nodes. 

 They do not boil apart in caustic potash. The spicules of the coenenchyma are exceedingly 

 varied in form, but are all modifications of the tuberculate spindle on the one hand and of 

 the spiny club on the other. The spindles are densely tuberculate and usually short and stout, 



