744 DR. J. E. GRAY ON ANTARCTIC CORALS. [June 18, 



4. Notes on Corals from the South and Antarctic Seas. 

 By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S. &c. 



[Received June 6, 1872.] 



(Plates LXII.-LXIV.) 



In 1846 Captain Sir James Ross sent to me four very detailed 

 and accurate drawings of corals obtained in the southern part of the 

 South Seas, informing me that I might figure them (after I had re- 

 ceived descriptions of them from Mr. Charles Stokes) in the 'Voyage 

 of the Erebus and Terror.' Three of the four drawings are named, 

 in pencil, Melitea australis, n. s., Primnoa rossii, n. s., and Madre- 

 pora fissurata, u. s., most probably the manuscript names that Mr. 

 Stokes intended to give them. I do not recognize that they are in 

 his handwriting ; I think the writing is that of my dear friend, James 

 de Carle Sowerby ; and I see one of the drawings is marked "J. S." 

 I suppose Mr. Stokes had the specimens ; and probably they were 

 dispersed at his death, and are thus lost to science, as many speci- 

 mens are that are collected during voyages of discovery made at the 

 expense of Government, when given to private individuals, as is so 

 frequently done. Captain Sir J. Ross and Mr. Stokes are both dead, 

 and there is no hope of receiving any more particulars from them; and 

 I feel that it is desirable that corals from such an out-of-the-way and 

 rarely visited region should not be lost to science, and that I do not 

 at all interfere with their wishes in laying them before the Society, 

 and in having the drawings published after this long period of time. 

 The other drawing represents a species of Tubulipora ; but it does 

 not bear any name, and, like the other three, is entirely destitute of 

 any special habitat. 



Mopsella australis. (Plate LXII. figs. 7-9, and Plate LXIII. 

 figs. 10-12.) 



Coral deep red, forming an expanded plane irregularly furcately 

 branched; stem more or less sinuous; branches very unequal and 

 acute at the tip ; axis dark red-brown, longitudinally striated ; ar- 

 ticulations scarcely prominent, pale reddish ; bark smooth, dark 

 red ; polypes whitish, chiefly on the sides of the branches, surrounded 

 by a prominent ring of the bark, which is slightly siuuated on the 

 edge. 



Melitea australis, n. s., Stokes, ? MS. 



Hab. Antarctic Ocean (Ross). 



The branches of the coral seem to have the faculty of forming an 

 expanded disk, acting as a root whenever they touch a rock or other 

 marine body. 



Fannyella. 



Coral slightly furcately branched ; branches club-shaped, enlar- 

 ging upwards, and then rapidly contracting at the tip ; polypiferous 

 cells many, in numerous close concentric rings, forming regular 



