MADREPORARIA OF THE DEEP SEA. 305 
terranean coral fauna, should not have been obtained by the dredge and tangles. Some 
of them are dwellers in moderately deep water, and haye been noticed by Forbes and 
Milne-Edwards and Jules Haime. On the other hand it is satisfactory to have obtained 
so many specimens of certain rare corals that the doubts about their classificatory 
position could be solved by subjecting a few to transverse and longitudinal section. 
The results of this procedure, with respect to Lophohelia prolifera, Pallas, sp., and 
Amphihelia oculata, Linneus, are very damaging to the integrity of the family of the 
Oculinide ; for, as the corallites of these species do not fill up from within, they can no 
longer be separated from the Astreidee. Moreover longitudinal sections of the corallum 
of specimens of the first-named species show dissepiments and large tabule; and thus 
the propriety of establishing a section of the Madreporaria which shall be differentiated 
by these perfect transverse floors of endotheca is strongly contra-indicated. 
The specimens obtained in both of the expeditions of the ‘ Porcupine’ can be arranged 
into forty-eight groups, consisting of species and varieties—7. ¢. twenty-seven species and 
twenty-one varieties. ‘There are, amongst these, fourteen new species, twelve species 
already described, and one incerte sedis. The varieties consist. of four the typical 
forms of which are not present in the collection, and of seventeen which accompany the 
specific types also. 
Owing to the extraordinary variability of some of the corals, I have been able, by 
comparing them with the descriptions and types of closely allied recognized species, 
to absorb several specific forms, and in two instances to treat genera so. Thus I have 
absorbed the genus Ceratocyathus in the older genus Caryophyllia, and Thecopsammia 
in Balanophyllia. 
The species Caryophyllia borealis, Fleming, and C. smithi, Stokes, I have made varieties 
of the older type Caryophyllia clavus, Scacchi. The Sphenotrochus intermedius, Ed. & 
H., of the Crag and Tangier Bay, and Sphenotrochus milletianus, Defrance, are varieties 
of the same type. Two species of Desmophyllum are absorbed into the species crista- 
galli; and its range, therefore, is enlarged. No less than seven species and two genera 
must now be aggregated in the Amphihelia ramea of Miiller; and three if not four 
species of Lophohelie should be associated with the species prolifera and its variety 
gracilis. 
At least fourteen old species have been thus absorbed, and, it is trusted, not to the 
detriment of truth or of a true classificatory philosophy. 
The following is the list of the Madreporaria dredged up in the two expeditions of 
the ‘ Porcupine’ :— 
2x2 
