Miscellaneous. 79 
the trunk ; there is a dark brown streak across the temple. The 
belly is greyish, and finely and irregularly speckled with brown. 
inches. lines. 
metal length os 08s fos. eae 4° 3 
Length of the head .............. 0 5 
Greatest width of the head ........ 0 3 
Length of the trunk .............. 10 0 
Pength of the tall’... . 5... 22.027 3 10 
The maxillary teeth are of moderate size, of nearly equal length, 
in a continuous series, and entirely smooth. 
MISCELLANEOUS. 
Observations on the Corymbose Madrepores. 
By M. A. VALENCIENNES. 
One of our most elegant forms of Madrepore is that called Madre- 
pora corymbosa by Lamarck. Reducing the characters of the genus 
to those now fixed by Ehrenberg, and studying the fine specimens 
contained in the Museum at Paris, the author has found that Lamarck 
united, under the name of Madrepora corymbosa, at least three di- 
stinct species: one hollowed out into a very shallow cup, brought 
by Péron and Lesueur in 1803, for which he retains Lamarck’s 
name ; a second, spread out in the form of a fan, which was obtained 
by the celebrated Professor of the Garden of Plants at the sale of 
the collection of Madame de Bois-Jourdain, which came from the 
Caribbean Sea, together with the first specimen ever seen in France 
of the recent Encrinus (Encrinus caput-Meduse). To this species 
the author gives the name of Madrepora flabilis: it is characterized 
by the shortness of the branches, which are less slender than those 
of M. corymbosa, Lamk. and Val. The third species, more spread 
out and spinose, is named M. corymbitis, Val.; it appears to be 
intermediate between the two preceding species. 
M. Milne-Edwards, in his work on Corals, has added a fine species 
of these Madrepores, to which he has given the name of Madrepora 
flabelliformis : it is from the seas of Vanikolo; the specimen in the 
Paris Museum was obtained by MM. Hombron and Jacquinot in the 
voyage of Admiral d’Urville. This species is distinguished from the 
West Indian one by its closer and longer branches. 
The Museum of Natural History has just acquired four new spe- 
cies of these corymbose Madrepores, obtained at Marseilles by M. L. 
Rousseau, one of the assistants in the Museum. These beautifully 
preserved corals show, in a more certain manner than could have 
been suspected from the specimens deposited in our collections from 
the time of Lamarck, that the species of these corymbose Madre- 
pores obtained from the American seas are different from those of 
the t Indian Ocean, although preserving an analogous form in 
allied species. To establish this. fact, the author first adduces the 
species to which he gives the name of M. radicans, of which the 
