1 84 THE OCEAN WORLD. 



deposit which has the appearance of a star of radiating acutely- 

 pointed lamellae above, and simple rays, full of wrinkles, beneath. 

 There are several species, mostly natives of the Pacific and Indian 

 Oceans and Red Sea, which De Blainville arranges in three groups, 

 according as they are simple and circular, simple and compressed, 

 or complex and oblong. In Fungia echinata, represented in Fig. 66, 

 we have a species which inhabits the Indian and Chinese Seas. It 

 belongs to the last group, being oblong in form, convex above, and 

 concave below. The hollow, from which the lamellae or chamber- 

 walls proceed, are of considerable length ; the toothed partitions are 

 very irregular, thin and prickly, resting upon their lower edge, leaving 

 the concave portion of the field free to a crop of excrescences, 

 resembling the roof of a grotto studded with small stalactites. 



The appearances presented by the soft parts of the polyps have 

 been described by many travellers. The upper portion of the body 

 of the animal, corresponding to the lamelliform part of the polypidom, 

 is furnished with scattered tentacula, very long in some species, and 

 remarkably short in others, these tentacula appear to terminate in a 

 small sucker. In order to complete our description of these curious 

 madrepores, we may refer to Fungia patella, represented in Fig 67. 

 This remarkable species inhabits the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, 

 and is here represented with its polyps. 



De Blainville gave the name of MADREPOR^EA to the second 

 group of the stony Zoantharia, and they correspond to the Madrepores 

 per/ores of Milne-Edwards. The skeletons of this section are generally 

 arborescent, with small, partially lamelliform cells, which are con- 

 stantly porous in the interstices of the walls of the cells, this being 

 their most important characteristic. Thus, the polyps present no side 

 plates, the visceral chamber being open from the base to the summit, 

 and is neither filled with dissepiments nor with plates. 



The history of these inhabitants of the deep is extremely obscure, 

 the most beautiful of the species are intertropical, and consequently 

 were for a long time beyond the reach of discriminating observers 

 during the life of the animal. Solander proposed to divide the group 

 according to certain characteristics in the growth of the coral, and 

 De Blainville has re-arranged the groups formed by Lamarck, 

 Lamouroux, and Goldfuss, with special reference to the structure of 

 the soft parts of the animals figured by Lesueur, Quoy, Gaimard, and 

 others, who have observed them in a recent state. 



The perforated Zoantharta form two very natural families : the 

 Madreporina and the Poritince. The first have the solid parts of the 



