﻿APPENDIX TO THE GENUS MONTIPOEA. 181 



c. Tuherculate. 



Montipora incognita. 

 [For description, see p. 131, also PI. XXIV. fig. l.J 



There are six fragmentary specimens in the Museum of the University of Cambridge 

 ■which appear to be very closely allied to the single type specimen in the National Collection. 

 Four of them are parts of fronds and two are nodules. The largest frond is 14 cm. deep. 

 In the general aspect of the surface the specimens closely resemble one another and the 

 British Museum specimen, the calicles being somewhat obscured by the ragged tubercles. 

 Again, the under surface is frequently free from epitheca, smooth and stony, with the same 

 gyrating fissures. But only on one specimen is there any indication on the under surface of 

 the protrusions of the coenenchyma, and then they are not more than incipient drops and not 

 the long poiated cones of the type specimen in the British Museum. Lastly, all have the 

 same tendency of the coenenchyma to form a light, delicate, foam-like reticuluni, a laminate 

 streaming layer, and flame-like tubercles. 



The most conspicuous differences are the following : — The calicles in the Cambridge 

 specimens are somewhat smaller, wider apart, and more sharply circumscribed ; on the nodules 

 they are surrounded by protuberant membranous walls. The septa are in two cycles, the 

 directive being interruptedly laminate. In the type specimen the septa are only thin spines. 



The tubercles, though having in general the same ragged flame-like appearance, are 

 much more uniform in the type specimen. In the Cambridge specimens they vary greatly 

 in size and distribution. They are more associated with calicles as palisades of smooth glassy 

 rods or plates, the edges of which alone are frayed out, whereas in the type not only the 

 edges of the rods and plates but the sides also are covered with fine points. 



In spite of these striking differences I feel justified in associating these corals with the 

 type, firstly because the six Cambridge specimens vary greatly among themselves according 

 to their different growth-forms, and the nearer the form of the fragment is to that of the type 

 specimen the closer is the resemblance ; secondly, because the type specimen is much older 

 and thicker, and some of the differences might be thus explained. The older and thicker 

 stock might have slightly larger and thus more crowded calicles ; the thicker the ccenenchyma, 

 the more certainly would the smoother portions of the tubercles be submerged until only 

 their ragged tips and edges appeared above the surface. This last point, however, is not very 

 important, owing to the extraordiaary variability in the fine surface texture on different 

 parts of one and the same specimen. 



These corals, like the last, are from Funafuti, EUice Islands, and also vary in colour from 

 purple to violet. 



140. Montipora myriophthalma. 



Description. — Corallum, complete form unknown, encrusting, thick, 6 to 7 mm., irre- 

 gularly crumpled and folded round former growths, so as to form irregular nodules. An 

 epitheca close under the thick, round, creeping edge. 



Calicles very conspicuous, the apertures being surrounded by close rings of short, round 



