1862.] AND A NEW ALLIED GENUS (mORCHELLANa). 29 



II. The polypes isolated in the prominent isolated spiculose sub- 

 cylindrical cells, scattered on the sides, or forming tips of the 

 branchlets. Spoggodia. 



3. Spoggodes unicolor. (Woodcut, figs. 1, 2.) 



The coral uniform, pale yellowish (in spirits) ; the spicules very 

 slender, whitish yellow ; stem erect ; branches scattered in all di- 

 rections, spreading, tapering, with few short tapering branchlets ; 

 cells distinct, distant, spreading, subcylindrical, sometimes very 

 slightly contracted at the base ; mouth surrounded by five or six 

 unequal prominent spicules, the one on the outer side of the cell 

 being generally the longest ; polypes retractile. 



Hah. Bellona Reefs, in 17 fathoms (Rayner). 



4. Spoggodes divaricata. (Woodcut, figs. 3, 4.) 



Coral pale whitish (in spirits); stem thick, slightly branched, with 

 very numerous crowded ramuli forming roundish lobes ; the ramuli 

 divided at the top into three or five diverging cylindrical cells ; the 

 cells of the several branchlets forming a sort of roundish-topped 

 cyme ; polypes contracted (in spirits), rose-coloured. 



Hab. New Guinea (Capt. Sir Edward Belcher, R.N., C.B.). 



5. Spoggodes ramulosa. (Woodcut, figs. 5, 6.) 



The coral dark brown-red (in spirits); stem thick, much branched, 

 strengthened by slender, elongated, fusiform, dark-brown- red spicules; 

 the branchlets numerous, elongate, slender, much branched, with the 

 cells scattered on their sides ; cells distant, subcylindrical, and 

 fringed on the edge with unequally prominent spicules, the outer 

 spicules being generally the longest and most prominent ; the polypes 

 pale yellowish, being generally nearly contracted into the cells, rarely 

 prominent. 



Hab. Bellona Reefs, at 17 fathoms. 



Some of the polypes on the lower part of the branchlets seem to 

 be somewhat crowded. This species is easily known from S.florida 

 and »S, unicolor by the general colour of the coral and by the slender- 

 ness and length of the branchlets. It agrees with the former in the 

 coral and spicules being red, and the polypes being more or less pro- 

 minent and of a different colour from the coral, and with the latter 

 in form of the cell ; but the cells are very differently disposed, and 

 of a slender, attenuated form. 



We have in the British Museum a new form of the " Alcyoniens 

 arme's" of M. Milne-Edwards (Coralliaires, vol. i. p. 127), which, in 

 my idea, form a family that may be called Nepthyadce. 



This coral differs from the three genera of this family mentioned 

 by Milne-Edwards, in the lower part or stem being coriaceous and 

 destitute of any spicules, and in the upper part being spiculose, and 

 furnished with short clusters of polype-cells, giving it much the ap- 

 pearance of the Fungi called Morchella and Helvella. 



