﻿FOVEOLATE MONTIPOE^. 55 



of the same height, siae and thickness, and fuse together to form angular or circular ramparts 

 round the calicles which are thus at the bottom of wells. The walls of the ramparts slope 

 straight down into the polyp cavity, often without any shelf round the aperture of the latter. 

 Where the ridges are incomplete, and vary in height and development, they give the surface 

 a toothed appearance by being pointed and triangular. 



On the under surface, the ccenenchyma forms a rather solid, bluntly echinulate, but 

 otherwise smooth reticulum. 



There are seven specimens of this coral, four of them from Tongatabu. These latter are 

 of interest because they solve the mystery which has so long surrounded Quoy and Gaimard's 

 type of the genus Montipora. These authors discovered a specimen with thin, toothed, 

 triangular plates rising up in the interstices between the calicles ; they made a sketch of it 

 and then lost the specimen. They called it Montipora verriKOsa. De Blainville proposed to 

 identify it with Lamarck's Porites verrucosa. But the cylindrical papillae characterising 

 Lamarck's species could not be reconciled with the toothed and triangular plates shown in 

 the original drawing of Quoy and Gaimard. 



Milne-Edwards and Haime, after some hesitation, acknowledged the claim of Quoy and 

 Gaimard's figure, renaming it M. quoyi. This hesitation was no doubt increased by the fact 

 that both Lamarck's verrucosa and this mysterious coral came from Tonga and were perhaps 

 after all specifically identical. Among the Montiporse from Tonga, there are fortunately 

 specimens of both M. verrucosa, Lamarck, and of M, quoyi, M.-E. This latter name, however, 

 cannot be retained, because, prior to Milne-Edwards and Haime, Dana had figured and de- 

 scribed two Montipores (Manopores) under the names M. incrassata, from the Fiji Islands, and 

 M. foveolata, " probably " from the same place. Dana himself suggests that the former may be 

 the same as the coral represented by Quoy and Gaimard's " doubtful " figure. The series of 

 specimens in the ISTational Collection warrants us in regarding Dana's two species as the same, 

 the difference being merely that in M. incrassata, the plates are more purely triangular and 

 pointed, whereas in M. foveolata they fuse to form ramparts round the calicles. These 

 variations are found in one and the same specimen. 



The most important specimen in the collection is a large massive frond, unfortunately 

 broken into four pieces. It rises from a kind of stalk, bending over and expanding laterally 

 like a leaf; the under surface is supported by a well developed, concentrically wrinkled 

 epiUheca. The upper surface sends up thick irregular processes, following masses of worm- 

 tubes and calcareous alga. 



a. Tongatabu. J. J. Lister, Esq. 91. 3. 6. 41. 



h. Tongatabu. „ 



Specimen & is a nodulated mass which can be fitted on to a. Both these specimens 

 intertwine with gigantic calcareous worm-tubes (S is shown in the right-hand figure, PI. VI. 

 fig. 1). 



c. Kandavu. H.M.S. ' Challenger.' 86. 12. 9. 262. 



An irregular, circular, explanate growth, with humped surface, encrusting a previous 

 growth (left-hand figure, PI. VI. fig. 1). 



