Tenison- Woops.—On a new Species of Millepora. 845 
Arr. XL.—On a new Species of Millepora. By the Rev. J. E. Tzxisox- 
Woops, F.L.S., F.G.S., Corr. Mem. Roy. Soc. Victoria, Tasmania, 
Linn. Soc. N.S.W.; Hon. Mem. Roy. Soc. N.S.W., Adelaide Phil. 
Soc., etc., etc. Communicated by Prof. Hurron. 
[Read before the Otayo Institute, 10th September, 1873.) 
Tue specimen to which I have the honour to call the attention of the 
Society was sent to me by my friend Captain F. W. Hutton, of Otago, and 
was stated to have been found in Foveaux Strait; but the depth at which 
it occurred and its station were not stated. It is a tufted zoothome of 
highly reticulate structure, but hard and compact. It grows apparently 
in a solid mass, from which pencil-like cylindrical stones grow out verti- 
cally, to a height of two or three inches, but not more than a third of an 
inch in diameter. On examining the surface with the microscope, it is seen 
to be covered with minute rounded pores, which have an exact, thiekened, 
very slightly raised margin. These pores are very close to one another, 
but there are interstices which are oceupied by much smaller pores, which 
are in fact nothing but the polygonal spaces left between the closely- 
crowded tubes. When a fragment is broken across, two different kinds of 
structure are observed. One is a kind of outer ring, on which a radiate 
arrangement of the tubes is preserved, that is to say radiating from the 
axis to the circumference ; the other is a central cancellous tissue, made up 
of tubes exactly like the surface, but the walis more delicate. The outer 
radiate ring of tubes is about one-fifth of the diameter; the remaining four- 
fifths is occupied by the central tissue. The latter is of different colour, 
or blueish white, while the outer ring is a reddish-brown. The tubes, which 
open on the outer surface, are not more than half a millimeter in depth, 
but it is not at first very clear whether they are closed by tapering to a 
point or whether they curve downwards or upwards, and so join the 
cancellous tissue or pith, as it.might be termed, of the centre. ‘lhe tubes 
of the centre seem to be continuous. A hair can be easily passed down 
them for half an inch or more. When a section is made it is then clearly 
seen that the tubes curve downwards, and are crossed from time to time 
by tabule or partitions, which are few in number and wide apart. 
All these details point very decidedly to the nature of the organism with 
which we have to deal. It is a Millepore, but of an exceptional and peculiar 
type. Until very lately these singular corals were ranged amidst the 
Madreporaria tabulata. Their true character was, however, discovered by 
Agassiz on one of his cruises to the reefs of Florida, Prof. Dana says that 
he often had Millepore corals under study in the Pacific, and waited long 
for the expansion of the animals, but was never gratified by their making 
al4 : 
