1862.] dr. j. e. gray on new species of spoggodes. 27 



3. Description of some New Species of Spoggodes and of 

 A New Allied Genus (Morchellana) in the Collection 

 OF THE British Museum. By Dr. J. E. Gray, F.K.S., 

 V.P.Z.S., F.L.S., etc. 



(Plate IV.) 



The genus Spoggodes was established by Lesson on a coral that 

 was described by Esper under the name of Aleyonium fioridum. It 

 is characterized by the whole of its substance being membranous, 

 very loosely cellular within, and covered externally with a layer of 

 fusiform spicula which are most abundant round the cells. 



M. Milne-Edwards, in his ' Coralliaires,' only describes a single 

 species. 



The species of the genus in the British Museum may be divided 

 into two groups or subgenera. 



I. The polypes crowded together at the end of the hranchlet, and 

 the groups more or less surrounded by larger spicula of the 

 hranchlet. Spoggodes . 



1. Spoggodes Florida. (PI. IV. figs. I, 2, 3, 4.) 



The coral pale purplish-red (in spirits) ; stem thick, much 

 branched, strengthened with very slender elongate purple spicules ; 

 the branchlets short, clustered at the end of the branches, and form- 

 ing convex heads or cells ; cells fringed with the very slender elon- 

 gated spicules, and furnished with white, only partially contracted, 

 polypes. 



Aleyonium floridum, Esper, Pflanz. iii. 49, Alcy. t. 16, dry. 



Xinia purpurea, Lamk. Hist. A. s. V. ii. 401, from Esper. 



Neptea florida, Blainv. Man. Act. 523, from Esper. 



Spoggodes celosia, Lesson, 111. Zool. t. 21 ; M. -Edwards, Coral- 

 liaires, i. 129, t. Bl. f. 1. 



Spoggodea celosia, Dana, Zoophytes, 626, t. 59. f. 4. 



Hab. Australia; Sharks' Bay (.Mir. iJaywer) ; Philippine Islands 

 {II. Cuming, Esq.). 



2. Spoggodes spinosa. (PI. IV. figs. 5, 6, 7.) 



The coral whitish, forming roundish spinose masses ; the stem 

 thick, slightly branched, with very numerous short branchlets ; the 

 spicules white, very unequal, some large and thick ; the terminal 

 branchlet furnished, on the inner upper edge, with curved (in spirits) 

 partly retracted purple polypes, which are surmounted and protected 

 by the large opake-white spicules of the branchlets. 



Hab. New Guinea. 



This species is easily distinguished by the large size and opake- 

 white colour of the spicula and the purple colour of the polypes. 



