MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 99 



imbedded points directly to different beds. Prof. Duncan's statement, 

 that on some islands, such as Antigua and Trinidad, only reef species 

 are found, shows also pretty conclusively that, in other places there 

 must be deep-sea deposits which were not brought to light here. 



It is rather puzzling to find the West Indian miocene solitary species 

 so different from the living ones. Even when belonging to the same 

 genera (see table) the species of the miocene are of a very massive type, 

 very different from the living ; such are the Antillise and Asterosmilise, 

 with one exception. It is possible that these massive forms, of which 

 we have no analogous examples at the present time, may have been 

 living in the shoal-water, protected by reefs in the same way as the 

 Fungiae, or some of the unattached compound corals, as Manicina or 

 Isophyllia. 



The effect of slow changes of level has to be considered also as a 

 possible cause of mixture of the dead of one level with the living of 

 another. 



Caryophyllia berteriana Duch. 



. Caryophyllia formosa Pourt. 



The more the number of specimens of these forms accumulate, the greater 

 the difficulty to separate them. The principal difference consists in the form 

 of the septa, very exsert in G. berteriana, very little so in C. formosa, but I now 

 find many intermediate forms. The number of the pali, 12 to 16, cannot well 

 be retained as of specific value. 



Duchassaing has described as new C. sinuosa, corona, and protei, but the 

 descriptions either apply to young specimens or to mere varieties of the older 

 described species. 



There is in the collection a specimen taken in the act of swallowing a small 

 fish, which is j)artly inside the mouth, with the buccal membrane stretched 

 from both sides over its middle. 



Range* from 56 to 442 fathoms, in 19 stations, off Santa Cruz, Montserrat, 

 Guadeloupe, Dominica, Martinique, St. Vincent, the Grenadines, Grenada, 



and Barbados. 



It 



Caryophyllia cornuformis Pourt. 



Old specimens show considerable anomaly in the arrangement of the pali, 

 which are wanting sometimes in nearly one half of the calicle, and their place 

 filled up by enlarged ribbons of the columella. 



A case of involuntary parasitism, like the one mentioned in "Deep-Sea 



* The range in depth in this and the following desciipfions refers only to this 

 year's work. 



