28 BULLETIN OF THE 
.28 by .02, .24 by .03, .18 by .02 mm.; those of the ccenenchyma, .50 by .02, 
88 by .015, .22 by .015 mm. 
Station 190, in 542 fathoms, off Dominica, and Station 173, in 734 fathoms, 
off Guadeloupe, 1878-79, Blake Expedition. 
Family PRIMNOIDZE (emended). 
Primnoade (pars) Gray, Proc. Zoél. Soc. London, 1857, p. 285; 1859, p. 483. 
Primnoide (pars) VeRRI1, Revision Polyps E. Coast N. Am., in Mem. Bost. Soe. 
Nat. Hist., I., 1864, p. 8; Trans. Conn. Acad., L., 1869, p. 418. 
Primnoade (pars) + Calyptrophorade + Calligorgiade (pars) Gray, Cat. Lithophytes 
Brit. Mus., 1870. 
Primnoade (subfamily) StupER, Monatsb. Akad. Berlin, for 1878, p. 641, 1879. 
This family should, properly, be separated from Muriceide, and restricted so 
as to include only those genera in which the spicula of the ceenenchyma and 
calicles are scale-like and the axis more or less calcareous, at least in the main 
stem. The calicles are usually elongated and pedunculated, or narrower at 
base than at summit; they are frequently closed at the summit by eight oper- 
cular scales. In most of the species the calicles are arranged in whorls, which 
are often closely crowded, but in some cases they are in two simple, alternating 
rows. The Muriceide differ in having the axis entirely horny, and in having 
large fusiform or spiniform spicula. Gray erroneously included in his Prim- 
noadee Swiftia and Thesea, which have the axis horny and the spicula not 
scale-like ; Riisea, which is closely allied to Verrucella and Gorgonella ; and 
Chrysogorgia, the type of a distinct family. In his Calligorgiade he errone- 
ously included Scirpearia, Nicella, and Raynerella, which are closely allied to 
Verrucella. There is no good reason for separating the three groups named by 
him. 
Primnoa Pourtalesii VERRILL, sp. nov. 
Plate II. Figs. 2,2a-2e. 
The coral is plumose, with regularly pinnate branchlets, all in one plane. 
Near the base there are several divergent branches, like the main stem. The 
stem is compressed in the same plane with the branches, and is a little bent 
in zigzag between the branchlets. The branchlets are very regular, slender, 
straight and nearly parallel, alternating on the two sides, and diverging at an 
angle of about 45° from the stem. They bear the calicles in two close, regu- 
lar, alternating rows. The calicles are elongated, expanded at the summit, 
and curve a little upward and forward, so that the openings all face the 
front side of the coral; they are elegantly clad in a covering of small imbricated 
scales, forming several rows, and the aperture is closed by eight regular, con- 
vergent, triangular scales. Along each side of the main branches there is also 
a row of similar calicles, usually two on each side, between the bases of suc- 
cessive branchlets. 
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