8 TABULATE CORALS. 



to refer to the investigations of Mr Moseley, as published in 

 the above-mentioned and later memoirs; and I shall merely say 

 here that their general result was to complete the disintegra- 

 tion of the "Tabulate" of Edwards and Haime, and to fairly 

 remove from the Zoantharia certain groups that had previously 

 been referred to this order of the Actinozoa. Thus, Millepora 

 and its allies, as formerly asserted by Agassiz, are definitely 

 proved to be true Hydrozoa, in which class they form, with the 

 Sty taster idee, the new order of the Hydrocorallince ; Heliolites 

 and its numerous allies, instead of being relations of Millepora, 

 are shown conclusively to be Actinozoa, but to be at the same 

 time referable to an unsuspected order of this class namely, to 

 the Alcyonaria; while various familiar types of the Palaeozoic 

 "Tabulata" are brought by these discoveries into more or less 

 probable relationships with either the Hydrozoa or the Alcyo- 

 naria; and light of the most important character is afforded as 

 to certain structural features in the Palaeozoic types, which 

 have hitherto proved obscure or inexplicable. 



In the article " Corals " in the ' Encyclopaedia Britannica ' 

 (gth ed., vol. vi., 1877), I gave a short account of the then 

 existing state of our knowledge as to the structure and affin- 

 ities of the "Tabulate" Corals. In this article the researches 

 of Moseley are accepted ; the FavosUida are referred with 

 some doubt to the Perforate Zoantharia ; the Chcetetida are 

 separated from the Favositidce, and regarded as possibly Alcyo- 

 narian; the Syringoporida are shown to have affinities with 

 the Favositidcz; and the conclusion is arrived at, that if any 

 forms can be retained as a " Tabulate " order of the Zoantharia, 

 it is probably those represented by Syringopora and Halysites, 

 with their allies. 



Lastly, Professor Zittel (Handbuch der Palaeontologie, Bd. 

 i. Lief, ii., 1879) accepts in the fullest sense the abolition of 

 the "Tabulata" of Milne-Edwards and Haime, and disposes 

 of the members of this group in different directions. Millepora 

 and its allies are placed, as is proper, in the Hydrozoa as also, 

 with less reason, is Labechia; the family of the Favositida is 



