MATTHAI— RECENT COLONIAL ASTR^ID^ 59 



terminal battery and sub-terminal batteries if visible of varying number. Stomodeeum short, 

 much compressed laterally; directive grooves deep and narrow. Ovoid bodies* present 

 everywhere in ectoderm excepting in calicoblast ; they appear to be degenerate nematocysts 

 of nos. Ill or I. Entoccelic pleats broad, constricted at their bases and often sub- 

 divided, below stomodseum extending over two-thirds breadth of mesenteries, decreasing 

 in size from skeletal attachments. Entoccelic muscle-bands large. Endoderm of body- 

 wall above enterostome thin, below distended by vacuolation with gradual loss of nuclei, 

 so that it forms at base of polyp a highly reticulated non-nucleated layer, filling up 

 the greater part of the gastro- vascular spaces. Ova in a single longitudinal row in 

 every mesentery. Multiplication by budding usually from ccBnosarc, sometimes from 

 edge-zone. 



Remarks. In the retracted condition the oral-disc is unevenly raised up by the 

 highly exsert septa and deeply cleft radially by the ingrowth of the latter, leaving only 

 a narrow undivided portion around the slit-like mouth. 



Owing to insufficiency of polyp material, I have not been able to determine 

 satisfactorily the relationships of the many recoi'ded species of this genus. 



G. bougainvillei (Blain.), G. pauciradiata (Blain.), G. hexagonalis, Ed. and H., and 

 G. laperouseana, Ed. and H., are missing from the Paris Museum, and Antliophyllum 

 musicals (Ehrb.) from the Berlin Museum. Without polyps the relationships of Milne 

 Edwards and Haime's four examples of G. quoyi, Ed. and H., to the species of Galaxea 

 described in this paper cannot be determined. Their corallites are smaller than those 

 of G. fasciculay^is and the corallum is lighter ; quinary septa are also wanting. 



I have only given the principal characters of Prof Gardiner's examples of G. hexa- 

 gonalis and G. laperouseana, since without polyps it is impossible to determine their 

 respective places in the genus ; Milne Edwards and Haime's type specimens of these two 

 species are missing from the Paris Museum. 



Distribution. — Red Sea, Indian and Pacific Oceans. 



1. Galaxea fascicularis (Linnaeus). (PL 8, fig. 4 ; 16, fig. 4 ; 38, fig. 6 ; 34, fig. 3 ; 

 38, fig. 6.) 



1767. Madrepora fascicularis, LinnEeus, Syst. Nat., edit. 12, p. 1278. 



1786. Madrepora fascicularis, Ellis and Solander, Nat. Hist. Zooph., p. 151, pi. 30. 



1791. Madrepora cuspidata, Esper, Forts. Pflanz., i, p. 155, pi. 28, figs. 1 and 2. 



?,1791. Madrepora fascicularis, Esper, Forts. Pflanz., i, p. 157, pi. 29, figs. 1 and 2. 



1815. Galaxea fascicularis, Oken, Lehrb. Naturg., i, p. 73. 



1815. Galaxea cuspidata, Oken, Lehrb. Naturg., i, p. 73. 



1816. Caryophyllia fasciculata, Lamarck, Hist, Anim. sans vert., ii, p. 226, — 2* edit,, p. 349. 

 ]818. Caryophyllia fasciculata, Blainville, Diet. Soi. Nat,, vii, p. 194. 



1834. Anihophyllum fasieulare, Ehrenberg, Corall. roth. Meer., p. 89. 



1846. Anihophyllum cuspidatum, Dana, Expl. exp. Zooph., p. 401. 



1846. Anthophyllum hysirix, Dana, Expl. exp. Zooph., p. 401, pi. 28, fig. 2. 



1848. Sarcinula fascicularis, Milne Edwards and Haime, Ann. Soi. Nat., Zool., 3" ser., x, p. 313. 



* Prof. Bourne (15, p. 531, fig. 30) has used the term " ovoid bodies " to somewliat similar structures in the 

 calicoblastic ectoderm of Caryophyllia smithii, which he regarded as degenerate nematocysts. If these bodies 

 and the ones recorded above are homologous, it is noteworthy that the latter should be absent everywhere from 

 the calicoblast of the two species of Galaxea, whose polyps I have studied. 



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