OUR KNOWLEDGE OF THE ANTIPATHAEIAN COKALS. 89 



the stems pass on, getting steadily, if slowly, more and more slender ; sometimes the 

 reticulating bands are stout, short, and frequent ; sometimes a considerable space is 

 bridged over by a much more delicate bar. 



The fan behind is of greater beauty than the more stunted and more injured branch 

 that lies in front of it, but it is needless to enter into the details. It divides into three 

 main branches, one of which occupies the left, and the other two the right halves of 

 the fan ; this mass, being more complete than that in front of it, is much more beautiful, 

 far more beautiful than any description of mine would lead the student to suppose ; 

 the imagination may well allow itself to revel in the idea of the vision of beauty that 

 must have presented itself when this magnificent fan was covered by the living matter 

 which formed it, when the polyps with their expanded tentacles were drawing on the 

 nourishment around for the means to sustain and increase it. 



On the hinder fan there are to be seen outgrowths from stems of various sizes which 

 did not take any share in the formation of the network ; these may be merely sessile 

 knobs, or they may be as much as 60 millim. long, but the free end is always converted 

 into a rounded head. 



Saving only the information which the specimen gives us as to the size and beauty 

 to which the " black coral " may grow, it adds nothing to our knowledge of the mor- 

 phology of the species, but this has already been studied. When, however, we reflect 

 on the delight which an object of such beauty can give us, we may congratulate our- 

 selves on the good fortune of the Trustees in securing it. 



On the Name to be applied to the " Black Coral " of the Mediterranean. 



I must pass from this poor attempt to express to others the feelings that the sight 

 of this object arouses in me, to the more prosaic and infinitely less agreeable question 

 as to the generic and specific names which this species should bear. 



Prof. Lacaze-Duthiers has already ^ pointed out that it has received more than one 

 " scientific name " from having been described by different authors in different degrees 

 of perfection ; on these there is no need to dilate, as the question was, to a certain 

 extent, settled by the eminent zoologist to whom I have refeiTed, and there may be 

 said to have been a universal acceptation of the name he applied to it, Gerardia 

 lamarcki, Haime. Yet more recently we have been again made familiar with the 

 generic name by the same zoologist's beautiful investigations into the history of the 

 crustacean parasite which he has called Laura gerardim 2. 



Mr. Brook, in his valuable report on the Antipatharia collected during the voyage 

 of H.M.S. ' Challenger,' uses the generic name Savaglia. 



' Ann. Sci. Xat. (Zool.) (-5) ii. (1864) p. 173. 



' Memoires de I'Aoacl. des Sciences de I'lnstitut de France, xlii. (1883) no. 2, p. 4. 



