296 MR. J. Y. JOHNSON ON A SECOND [June 25, 



side may obtain the same amount of heat from their bodies, which 

 is essentially requisite, or the egg would not be brought to perfect 

 maturity. 



The eggs, it is said, " when quite fresh are delicious eating, as de- 

 licate as a fowl's egg, but much richer." The natives of the Hapace 

 Islands, either from their rarity or from their great delicacy, look 

 upon the eggs found in their islands as worthy to be reserved for 

 the chief's eating ; and for that reason they are denominated " Chief's 

 Eggs." The flesh of the adult bird of some species has been pro- 

 nounced to be good eating. 



8. Description of a Second Species of Acanthogorgia (J. 

 E. Gray) from Madeira. By James Yate Johnson. 



In the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society' for 1857, p. 128, 

 was printed a description of a new genus of GorgoniadcB by Dr. J. 

 E. Gray, founded on a specimen in the British Museum, the habitat 

 of which was unknown. The genus was named by its describer 

 Acanthogorgia, and the specimen was figured, by an inadvertence, in 

 the 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society' for 1851 (^Radiata, PI. 

 III. fig. 2), under the name of i\^^e?a/^a occidentalis, instead of ^ccr«- 

 thogorgia hirsuta. Gray. I am now in a position to state that the 

 native place of this curious Black Coral (of which no notice has been 

 taken by M. Milne-Edwards in his work on Coralliaria) is Aladeira ; 

 for I possess one specimen, and have seen others, obtained from deep 

 water near that island. Last winter a specimen of Black Coral fell 

 into my hands (also obtained from the same coast), which, though 

 e\'idently belonging to the genus Acanthogorgia, appeared on exami- 

 nation to be specifically distinct from the species previously described. 

 I now proceed to lay before the Society a description of this second 

 species, which I have named, in honour of the founder of the genus 

 to which it belongs, 



Acanthogorgia grayi. 



Colour dark brown. Branching irregularly, with a tendency to 

 grow in one plane. Branches free, slender, flexible, having an average 

 diameter of one-seventh of an inch ; the thickest part of the stem 

 near the base has a diameter of three-tenths of an inch ; the ends of 

 the branches are rounded, and thicker by one-half than the neigh- 

 bouring portion of the branch. Axis pale brown, very slender, that 

 of the smaller branches, when dry, being not more than the twentieth 

 of an inch in diameter. "When the coral has been a few days out of 

 the water, the axis shrinks from the bark, and remains distinct in the 

 middle. It is composed of fibrous matter without spicula. Caustic 

 alkali has little or no eff'ect upon it, even on the application of heat. 

 Bark composed almost entirely of spicula, studded with sessile cylin- 

 drical cells, irregularly distributed on all sides. These cells have a 

 height of from the thirtieth to the twentieth of an inch, and their 

 diameter is about half the height. The upper halves of eight (some- 



