14fO Zoological Society :—r- 



Amblyopus, Gthr. 



A. Teeth in a band, with an outer series of stronger ones. 



* More than twenty-five soft dorsal rays : Amblyopus, C. & V. 

 East Indies. 



** Less than twenty soft dorsal rays : Gohioides, Lace'p. Peru 

 and Guayaquil, 



B. Teeth in a single series : Tyntlastes. California. 



Descriptions of some New Corals from Madeira. 

 By James Yate Johnson, Cor. Mem. Z.S. 



Fam. Acanthogorgiad^, J. E. Gray. 



ACANTHOGORGIA ATLANTICA, Sp. R. 



Since the occurrence of a specimen of Acanthogorgia Grayi, of 

 which I laid a description before the Society last year (Ann. Nat. Hist. 

 1862, ix. 75), another form of the genus has been discovered. This 

 was brought up from deep water at Madeira, having become entangled 

 in a fisherman's line. As there are obvious distinctions from the 

 two other species of this genus, I shall venture to describe it as new. 



It is of a dark-brown colour, and is very sparingly branched in 

 one plane. The base spreads out in thin branching sheets amongst 

 small shells and fragments of stone which adhere to it. The stem 

 and branches, with their closely packed cells, are cylindrical, the 

 former not much thicker than the latter. The branches are rounded 

 at their extremities. The cells are short, cylindrical, sessile, and so 

 crowded on all sides of the stem that they conceal it from view ; 

 whilst in the two other species of this genus the cells are widely 

 separated, and the bark is seen between them. When the polypi- 

 dom is dry, a brown, slender, horny axis, without spinulse, stands 

 distinct from the bark, as in the other species. This axis, when soft- 

 ened and submitted under pressure to the microscope, is seen to 

 consist of fibres bearing a general similarity to those composing the 

 axis of Antipathes. Round the orifice of each cell project large 

 spicula, and smaller spicula strengthen the sides of the cells and the 

 bark. The spicula are intermediate in character between those of 

 A. hirsuta and A. Grayi, being less slender than those of the first 

 species, and less stout than those of the second. The great spicula 

 round the mouth of the cell have their exposed portions spinulose or 

 tuberculated (not smooth as in A. hirsuta) ; their bases are branched 

 (as in A. Grayi), and they are much less marked with the tubercles 

 which roughen the bases of the last-named species so remarkably. 



This species is distinguishable from the other two by the greater 

 crowding of the cells, by the cells themselves being sessile and being 

 therefore less prominent, by the paucity of the ramifications, and by 

 the diiferences in the spicula already pointed out. In habit it is 

 very distinct. 



The specimen (which is now in the British Museum) has a height 



