138 PBOF. p. M. DUNCAN" ON THE 



on the Fungidfe ; and during twenty years very few alterations 

 have been made in the classification. Some genera have been 

 added, and some, like Palceocyclus., have been expunged ; but no ex- 

 tension of knovpledge regarding the soft or the hard structures has 

 been recorded. Lately, however, a remarkable diversity of opinion 

 has been expressed upon the value of one of the fundamental aud 

 family characters ; and the result has been that certain palaeonto- 

 logists, who do not care to study recent forms, have attempted 

 not only to separate the family from the Aporosa, but to deny 

 the classificatory value of the structures called synapticula by 

 MM. Milne-Edwards and Jules Haime. 



I believe that these diversities of opinion are due to the want 

 of a knowledge of the writings of the distinguished French zoo- 

 phytologists in the first instance, and also to the deficiency of 

 accurate details and definitions regarding those internal hard 

 parts of the Fungidse which are of primary classificatory im- 

 portance. 



Several modifications of the classification adopted by MM. 

 Milne-Edwards and Jules Haime have been proposed of late 

 years, not so much, however, from the influence of the discovery 

 of new structures or of new views regarding the importance of 

 old and well-known ones, as from the desire to rej)lace the 

 generic terms employed before the authors of ' L'Histoire natu- 

 relle des Coralliaires ' wrote*. The principal change is to give 

 the family Eungidae the dignity of a suborder. 



The classification of the group will be noticed in a future com- 

 munication ; but it is necessary to remember that the Eungidse 

 cannot be dealt with without reference to the other divisions of 

 the Madreporaria, which is a suborder of Zoantharia. The order 

 Zoantharia has clearly three groups in it — the Malacodermata or 

 Actinaria, the Sclerobasica or Autipatharia, and the Scleroder- 

 mata or Madreporaria. These are very distinct suborders. They 

 cannot be promoted to orders, as the Zoantharia are not suffi- 

 ciently differentiated from others to be worthy of the position of 

 a class. There are two groups of the Madreporaria, the Aporosa 

 and Perforata, and the Eungidse link them together. But the 

 first-named groups, in consequence of the natural grouping of 

 sets of genera in them, must be subdivided into families and 

 subfamilies. Hence the Aporosa and Perforata are sections or 



* Especially Verrill ; and Klunzinger, ' Koralleiithiere des Rotben Meci'es,' 

 1879. 



