THE SMOOTH-RIBBED WEDGE-CORAL. 325 



Animal. Undescribed. 



Locality. 

 The coasts of Cornwall and Galway : deep water. 



I am sorry that I can give no information about this 

 species additional to what is already known, viz., that it 

 exists in a living state on our coasts, and that the skeleton 

 is preserved in cabinets. That in the British Museum is 

 the only one that I have seen. As long as naturalists con- 

 tent themselves with merely preserving the skeletons of the 

 animals they meet with, but little progress can be made in 

 a knowledge of their history.* 



The present species is said to have been dredged alive 

 off Scilly, by Mr. MacAndrew, after whom it has been 

 named, and off Arran, on the west coast of Ireland, by Mr. 

 Barlee. The generic name is from acfyrjv, a wedge, and 

 Tpoxps, a top, in allusion to the form of the corallum. 



S. millettanus, with which this has been confounded, is 

 a fossil of the miocene period, with a thicker point, and 

 a more elliptical calice. 



intermedius (foss.). 



Macandrewanus. 



pRoemeri (foss.).] 



* M. Milne Edwards has fallen (Hist. Corall. ii. 70) into the strange 

 inadvertence of supposing that the figure given by Johnston (Br. Zooph. 

 Ed. 2, pi. xxxv. fig. 7), of the living animal, belongs to this species ; 

 though the text distinctly says it is a Caryophyllia Smithii. The figure is 

 poor enough, it is true. 



