is 



chambers. The pali are almost always small and deop-scnted, and they are of 

 very variety of form thick and spongy, thin and lamelliform, or twisted and 

 granular. But it is very uncommon to find a crown of pali : more often the 

 pali arc mere little ragged lobules of the septa in question, and still more often 

 they cannot be distinguished at all. Even when there are well formed pali, 

 they may be absent from some of the chambers. 



The columella is generally very deep-seated, and is almost as variable 

 as the pali : in a few cases a true columella cannot be distinguished ; in many 

 cases it consists of a single loosely-coiled process, or of two such processes ; 

 but in most cases it is a good-sized mass, consisting of loosely-connected, 

 irregularly-twisted, often ragged and granular, processes. 



The outer surface of the thecal wall varies greatly in sculpture : some- 

 times it is only finely striated and granular, but more often fine sharply-salient 

 but discontinuous costa3, corresponding to the large septa, are present down to 

 the point where the calyx joins the stalk. 



Colours of the " living " corallum : thecal wall, from the point of junction 

 of the stalk, light brown, gradually darkening to cinnamon near the calicular 

 margin. The soft parts, in spirit specimens, are dull yellowish. 



The zoophytes appear to be extremely prolific, and they thickly encrust 

 dead corals in colony-like masses connected by copious epitheca. Very often 

 a young coral is found attached like a bud to the stalk or calyx of a full-grown 

 one, but, of course, without any internal connexion. 



A vast number of specimens were dredged off the Travancore coast, at a 

 depth of 430 fms., along with almost as much Desmophyllum and Solenosmilia 

 and large masses of Lophohelia. 



ii. ACANTHOCYATHTJS, Edw. & H. 



6. Acanthocyathus grayi, Edw. & H. 



Acanthocijathiis grayi, Edw. and H., Ann. Sci. Nat., Zool., ser. 3, vol. ix. p. 293, pi. ix. fig. 2, 1848 ; and Hist. 

 . Corall. II. -22, 



\ specimen dredged off the Andamans, at 185 fms., seems to me to be 

 undoubtedly referable to this species, with the description of which it agrees 

 completely, and from the figure of which it differs only in having longer 

 spines. 



I may mention that in the Indian Museum there are several specimens, 

 from the Andamans (depth unknown) and from off the Arakan coast (20-70 

 fms.), which are almost certainly this species, and that in two of them the 

 spines of the lateral costae are all flattened and fused together to form a pair of 

 large wings to the calicle. 



