1899.] ON THE ANTIPATHAKIAN COKALS OF MADEIEA. 813 



11. Notes on the Antipathariau Corals of Madeira, with 

 Descriptions of a new Species and a new Variety, and 

 Remarks on a Specimen from the West Indies iu the 

 British Mnseum. By James Yate Johnson, C.M.Z.S. 



[Received May 22, 1899.] 



The marine objects popularly called Black Corals are zoophytes 

 which constitute the group of Autipatharia in systematic zoology. 

 Some of them are much branched and resemble bushes that occa- 

 sionally reach the height of four or five feet. Others extend their 

 branches almost in one plane in a fan-like manner ; others, agam, 

 are simple unbranched stems, slender and wire-like, that are some- 

 times found with a length of seven or eight feet. All are attached, 

 when living, to submarine rocks or stones by a thin spreading base. 

 All have a hard horny axis of a black or brown colour, and that 

 axis is seen, on examining a section, to consist of concentric layers. 

 Further examination will show that it has a fibrous structure. 

 Stem and branches are frequently armed with minute spines 

 arranged iu longitudinal or spiral series, but sometimes the stem 

 and main branches are smooth and polished. The hard axis is 

 secreted by the soft polypiferous coenenchyma Avhich clothes it. 

 The polyps in the Madeiran forms have six (in one species twenty- 

 four) simple tentacles. Spicula are not anywhere present, and thus 

 the Antipatharia are easily distinguished from the Alcyonaria. 



Eight species of Black Coral belonging to six genera have been 

 found at Madeira, more than one-thirteenth of the total number 

 of known species. In the late George Brook's excellent Eeport 

 on the Antipatharia of the ' Challenger ' Expedition (1889) ninety- 

 eight species were dealt with, but these included not only the forms 

 collected by the naturalists of that expedition but all those pre- 

 viously described. The Eeport is therefore a Monograph of the 

 group. Until the publication of that work much difficulty was 

 experienced in coming to a conclusion with regard to the discnmi- 

 nation of species and the identification of specimens, owing to 

 imperfect description and confusion of nomenclature ; and even 

 now, notwithstanding that author's efforts, much remains to be 

 done, especially in regard to our knowledge of the polyps, before 

 satisfactory definitions are possible and the classification placed on 

 a trustworthy basis. 



All the species of Madeira come from depths below 40 fathoms 

 They are brought to the surface by becoming entangled now and 

 then in the lines of the fishermen. 



Of the eight species of Black Coral here treated of, five have not 

 hitherto been found elsewhere, and one of these is now described 

 for the first time {LeiopatJies expansa). Another of the five 

 species, having been confused with a "West Indian species, is here 

 distinguished by a fuller description, whilst a new name has 



Peoc. Zool. Soc— 1899, No. LIII. 53 



