150 PEOr. p. M. DtJKCAN ON THE 



gate. But it is evident that there is another character, which 

 relates to the long axial fossa. MM, Milne-Edwards and Jules 

 Haime write: — "Lafossette centrale est extremement longue, 

 etroite et pen profonde ; ""* but they do not notice that there are 

 any rudimentary calyces along its path. Yet in the specimen 

 now under consideration, from the Indian seas, the continuity of 

 the fossa or axial space is interfered with by the junction across 

 it of a large and small septum and of the rising upwards there 

 on the median line of the columella. In fact there is such an in- 

 defiuite calice in one half of the coral as may be seen in numbers 

 along the axial space or fossa of Serpolitha. A corresponding 

 structure may have been seen by Leuckart, who placed the spe- 

 cies in that genus. Klunzinger relegates the species to the genus 

 Saliglossa of Ehrenberg. 



The calices seen on either side of the axial space in Herpolitlia 

 are not found in this species ; and it must be considered a con- 

 necting form which should be placed last in the genus Fungia 

 and next to Herpolitha. 



Thexe would be no objection to making HaUglossa a subgenus 

 o^ Fungia, its character being the elongate shape and the discon- 

 tinuous axial space ; but I am not certain that an unde- 

 veloped calice is invariably absent in all FungicE, or present in all 

 the specimens of Fungia ecliinata. My impression is that it is 

 not an invariable character; and considering the singular powers 

 of perception and the great correctness of Jules Haime, it is very 

 probable that there was no such calice in the type described by 

 MM. Milne-Edwards and himself. Under the circumstances, I 

 retain the form in the genus Fungia. 



There are some very interesting points about the anatomy of 

 the hard parts of this coral, especially in relation to the struc- 

 ture of the septa and the synapticula. 



On looking at the coral from above, the succession of septa 

 is one thick septum with large dentations which are eveu den- 

 tate on their edges, followed by three small thin ones, of which 

 the middle septum is slightly the thickest. The middle septum 

 has its free edge lower than that of the large one, and it is also 

 dentate in a minor degree ; and the thin septa on both sides of it 

 are still lower in the interseptal loculi, and have their free edges 

 incised or very broadly and lowly dentated, 



* Op. cit vol. iii. p. 14, 



