176 Reviews — Miss Maria Ogilvie, B.Sc. — Madreporarian Corals. 



homologies of the muscles themselves. How entirely Miss Ogilvie 

 has missed this maj' be seen from her "homologies" already quoted, 

 and from the difference, asserted and reasserted, between synapticulcB 

 and pseudo-synapticulse. If the septa are near enough for two 

 granules to meet and fuse, it is a pseudo-synapticula ; it is a true 

 synapticula only if the space is too wide and a new " fascicle " or 

 bundle of calcified cells has to be formed so as to unite them. 

 A figure is given showing two septa converging towards and 

 meeting in the centre of the calyx ; where the space between these 

 septa to be bridged is wide the junctions are called synapticul^e, but 

 towards the centre they are called pseudo-synapticulse, the sole 

 difference being that more formative material was wanted to bridge 

 the wider than the narrower interval ! We need, I think, hardly 

 wonder if classification on such lines as these results in the 

 establishment of " mixed types." 



As an example of Miss Ogilvie's method, let us take her conclusion 

 that the coenenchyma of the Madreporidai is not a true coenenchyma, 

 but a " mural " structure homologous with the root-processes of 

 BMzotroclms. Miss Ogilvie distinctly tells us, p, 268, that but for 

 the " identity, in groups apparently wide apart, of the microscopic 

 structure of the septa and of the wall, as well as the similarity in 

 the internal plan of the calyx," this " homology " would never 

 have occurred to her (the italics in the quotation are not mine). In 

 order to work this out she has to deny that the Madreporidee possess 

 a true "edge-zone" (or Rand-platte of Heider), because when the 

 mural and septal structures grow up contemporaneously the inter- 

 septal loculi are not continued over the wall into the extrathecal 

 canal system ! Such a statement as this would have forced us to 

 conclude that she did not quite grasp the relations between the 

 polyp and the skeleton, if her own figures had not shown the 

 contrary. She entirely rejects Bourne's suggestion that the absence 

 of the remains of mesenteries outside the calyx may be due to 

 secondary degeneration. 



The whole argument seems to me singularly nnfortunato. It 

 looks likes a needless turning away from the obvious teaching of 

 her own figure, which shows the relation of the flesh to the 

 skeleton in Tti7-binaria. Again, it is not true that the interseptal 

 loculi of Turbinaria are typically shut off from the ccBnosarcal 

 canals round the lip of the calyx ; extraordinary variation occurs. 

 Lastly, it seems to me that the teaching of the epitheca is in direct 

 opposition to her contention. At least two of the Madreporidas, viz. 

 Aslrcsopora and Montipora, can be shown to start colony-building in 

 a small saucer-shaped epitheca. There is a larger central polyp, 

 which is the parent polyp of the colony, and an irregular ring of 

 smaller daughters between the central polyp and the epitheca. 

 Nothing but the severest demonstration would persuade me that 

 that epithecal saucer is not the epitheca of the parent polyp, and 

 that the flesh which stretches from the edge of the parent calyx 

 to the epitheca is not an edge-zone, no matter how complicated 

 the skeletal framework underneath it may have become. The 



