1862.] DR. J. E.GRAY ON NEW SPECIES OF SPOGGODES. 27 
3. DescriIrpTION or somME New SPECIES OF SPOGGODES AND OF 
A New Autump Genus (MorcHELLANA) IN THE COLLECTION 
or THE British Museum. By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.R.S., 
V.P.Z.S., F.L.S., ere. 
(Plate IV.) 
The genus Spoggodes was established by Lesson on a coral that 
was described by Esper under the name of dleyonium floridum. it 
is characterized by the whole of its substance being membranous, 
very loosely cellular within, and covered externally with a layer of 
fusiform spicula which are most abundant round the cells. 
M. Milne-Edwards, in his ‘Coralliaires,’ only describes a single 
species. 
The species of the genus in the British Museum may be divided 
into two groups or subgenera. 
I. The polypes crowded together at the end of the branchlet, and 
the groups more or less surrounded by larger spicula of the 
branchlet. Spoggodes. 
1. SpoccopEs FLoripA. (PI. IV. figs. 1, 2, 3, 4.) 
The coral pale purplish-red (in spirits); stem thick, much 
branched, strengthened with very slender elongate purple spicules ; 
the branchlets short, clustered at the end of the branches, and form- 
ing convex heads or cells; cells fringed with the very slender elon- 
gated spicules, and furnished with white, only partially contracted, 
polypes. 
Aleyonium floridum, Esper, Pflanz. iii. 49, Adley. t. 16, dry. 
Xinia purpurea, Lamk. Hist. A. s. V. ii. 401, from Esper. 
Neptea florida, Blainv. Man. Act. 523, from Esper. 
Spoggodes celosia, Lesson, Ill. Zool. t. 21; M.-Edwards, Coral- 
liaires, 1. 129, t. Bl. f. 1. 
Spoggodea celosia, Dana, Zoophytes, 626, t. 59. f. 4. 
Hab. Australia; Sharks’ Bay (Mr. Rayner) ; Philippine Islands 
(H. Cuming, Esq.). 
2. SpoccopEs spinosa. (PI. IV. figs. 5, 6, 7.) 
The coral whitish, forming roundish spinose masses; the stem 
thick, slightly branched, with very numerous short branchlets ; the 
spicules white, very unequal, some large and thick ; the terminal 
branchlet furnished, on the inner upper edge, with curved (in spirits) 
partly retracted purple polypes, which are surmounted and protected 
by the large opake-white spicules of the branchlets. 
Hab. New Guinea. 
This species is easily distinguished by the large size and opake- 
white colour of the spicula and the purple colour of the polypes. 
