﻿104 MADREPOKAEIA. 



formed of undifferentiated reticulum, each filling up an interstitial area, and the open con- 

 spicuous immersed calicles. It should be noted that the confusion over this species has 

 been great. De Blainville, who had access to Lamarck's ty^es, figures as Lamarck's 

 verrucosa a specimen which Milne-Edwards, who also had access to Lamarck's types, could 

 not recognise, but which turns out to be the Montipora ohtusata of Quelch. Lastly, the 

 specimen on which the genus was founded by Quoy and Gaimard, and identified by them with 

 Lamarck's verrucosa, had flat, tooth-like projections, and not the regular nipples of this species. 

 Milne-Edwards and Haime, therefore, with much hesitation, renamed Quoy and Gaimard's 

 specimen Af. Quoyi ; it is, however, here identified with Dana's M. foveolata, see p. 54. 



There is, however, a specimen from Tongatabu in the Paris Museum (261/7) which answers 

 completely to the description of Lamarck's original type. It is an oval encrusting plate, 18 cm. 

 by 12, and shows three successive growths. Among the other corals with which it is associated 

 in the Paris Collection are two which very clearly belong to it, one being a small massive 

 growth. There can be no doubt that these three are of the same species as the encrusting and 

 massive forms in the British Museum Collection, grouped together under tliis heading by 

 Briiggemann and Quelch. The chief difference between the flat encrusting and the massive 

 forms is perhaps due to the different methods of growth. It lies in the fact that the calicles 

 on the massive forms are more crowded ; hence there are fewer of the convex interstices 

 mentioned by Lamarck, and more conspicuous on the type specimen than in any of the 

 encrusting forms in the British Collection. 



A much more difScult question arises, as to the connection between certain coarsely 

 brandling specimens and the massive or encrusting specimens of M. verr^icosa. In the National 

 Collection the transitions can be easily traced, and brandling specimens which Quelch identified 

 with Dana's M. capitata (Sandwich Islands) are really only irregiilar growths of M. verrucosa. 

 There are in the Paris Museum two large specimens (258a, 258&) from the Eed Sea, strongly 

 resembling these branching M. verrucosa, and I at first thought these might be the M. capitatct 

 of Dana. A closer comparison of the specimens with Dana's figure showed, however, that 

 this could hardly be the case. Xor were they specimens of M. verrucosa, as here diagnosed ; 

 they appear to me to belong to an undescribed species. In the meantime the undoubted 

 existence of branching specimens of M. verrucosa seems to me to justify the provisional 

 association with this species of Dana's M. ca.pyitata. 



JSncrustincf. — A specimen showing four layers, three of which are dead and corroded, the 

 last one forms a cap with its edges drooping down all round ; the edges are without papillEe 

 and 4 to 5 mm. thick. Calicles unevenly distributed, very crowded and deep in parts without 

 papillcB. The higher portion of the stock shows a tendency to rise up into knobs, and on 

 these the papillas are larger. One of these knobs has grown out into a process which leads to 

 an irregular branching, as shown on specimens i and c. This encrusting specimen differs 

 from Lamarck's type in the fact that the streaming layer is not so distinctly lamellate. 



a. Honolulu. H.M.S. ' ChaUenger.' 86. 12. 9. 264. 



Branching. — Two clumps of irregular knobs or branches, and on this account separated 

 from a by Quelch and labelled if. capitata, Dana, whereas they appear to be only branched/ 

 specimens of a. In this connection it should be noted that in Dana's figure of J/, cajntata, the 

 calicles are indicated as small dots in wide level valleys, reminding one more of the conditions 

 seen in M. dance than of those which obtain in ilf. verrucosa. 



h, c. Honolulu. H.M.S. ' Challenger.' 



