THE 



GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



NEW SERIES. DECADE III. VOL. III. 



No. IX.— SEPTEMBER, 1886. 



OZRia-IIDsr^-IIL. .A-IRTICllIES. 



I. — On Some New or Imperfectly Known Madreporaria from 

 the Inferior Oolite of Oxfordshire, Gloucestershire and 

 Dorsetshire. 



By Eobert F. Tomes, Esq. 



(PLATE X.) 



IN the thirty-eighth volume of the Quarterly Journal of the 

 Geological Society is a paper by me on the Corals of the 

 Inferior Oolite, and in the following volume is one on the Corals 

 of the Great Oolite. The forty-first volume of the same periodical 

 contains a supplement to the latter, but to the former no such 

 addition has yet been made. The present communication makes 

 good that deficiency, and is a supplement to it. It contains, besides 

 the description of some new species, additional remarks on others 

 already known, mention of genera about which doubt has been ex- 

 pressed, and the description of one which I consider new. Another 

 genus, Stephanocoenia, though well known elsewhere, has up to the 

 present time remained unrecognized as British, and is now introduced 

 on the evidence of two well-marked species from the Inferior Oolite 

 of Gloucestershire. The addition to our Coral fauna of such genera 

 as the above, and of others equally well known which I have also 

 had the opportunity of making known, is of even greater interest 

 than the discovery of new genera and species. Epismilia, Donaco- 

 smilia, Cyathophyllia, Adelastrcea, Stylo smilia, Bhizangia, Thecoseris, 

 Leptophyllia, and Enallohelia, form a valuable contribution towards 

 the Coral fauna of this country. 



Three papers on Fossil Madreporaria have lately appeared from 

 the pen of Professor Duncan, two of which are professedly criticisms 

 on my own communications on the same subject. The title of the 

 first is, " On the Astrocoenise of the Sutton Stone and other Deposits 

 of the Infra Lias of South Wales." 



That of the second is, " On the Structure and Classificatory Position 

 of some Madreporaria from the Secondary Strata of England and 

 South Wales." Both these were read at the meeting of the Geological 

 Society on the 4th November, 1885, and appeared in full in the 

 Journal of the 1st of February, 1886. The third paper appears in 

 the February Number of the Geological Magazine for the present 

 year. 



Of the first of these I have only at present to say that it is 

 deserving of consideration, because it is based on the examination 

 of authentic specimens, though whether the conclusions sought to be 



DECADE III. — VOL. III. — NO. IX. 25 



