24 DR. J. E GRAY ON TWO NEW CORALS. [Jail. 9, 



3. Description of a New Species of Toucan belonging to the 

 Genus Aulacoramphus. By John Gould, F.R.S., &c. 



AULACORAMPHUS CYANOL^EMUS. 



Male. Bill black, with a small mark of yellow at the tip of the 

 upper mandible, and a band of white at the base of both mandibles 

 except on the culmen ; this white band is much narrower on the 

 upper than on the lower mandible, and moreover has the posterior 

 half of its breadth pale yellow ; naked skin around the eyes dull red; 

 throat greyish blue, approaching to violet, and becoming of a deeper 

 tint where it joins the green of the neck ; a tinge of blue also appears 

 at the base of the ear-coverts, towards the bill, and over the eye, 

 where, however, it becomes of a greener hue ; plumage of the head 

 and body deep grass-green, with a wash of yellow on the flanks ; 

 primaries black, edged with brown ; under surface of the wing pale 

 yellow; tail-feathers deep green, conspicuously tipped with chestnut; 

 under tail-coverts chestnut-brown ; legs green. 



Total length of male 12 inches, bill 2\, wing b\, tail f)\, tarsi \\. 



Female. Precisely similar in colour, but, as is the case with all 

 the other species of the genus, much smaller than the male. 



Hab. Loxa in Ecuador. 



Remark. — This well-marked species is allied to the Aulacoram- 

 phus catrideigularis of Panama and the A. atrigularis of Peru, but 

 differs from the former in the smaller extent of the blue on the throat, 

 from the latter in having no trace of black on that part, and from 

 both in the markings of the bill. 



4. Description of Two New Forms of Gorgonioid Corals. 

 By Dr. John Edward Gray, F.R.S.,-V.P.Z.S., &c. 



The other day a few Corals from Japan were sent to me for 

 examination ; and among a series of well-known species of Stony 

 Corals (Meliteea), and several kinds of the coral-like Algce belong- 

 ing to the genus Corallina and its allies, 1 discovered a small frag- 

 ment of a Gorgonia-Mke Coral that was studded with little horny 

 cups, which I was at first inclined to believe were some parasitic 

 animals that had fixed themselves on the coral, for they were entirely 

 unlike any cells that 1 have ever observed on a Gorgonioid Coral. 



Careful examination has satisfied me that the little cups are an 

 essential part of the coral, and that the latter is a form entirely new 

 to science, its nearest ally being of the genus Primnoa, the species 

 P. antai-ctica, found in the Antarctic Seas. 



It differs entirely from all the other genera of the group in the 

 tubes of the polype being formed of two obconic cells placed one on 

 the other. 



In Primnoa the cells are produced and covered with calcareous 

 scales, which are imbricated like slates on a house. 



