X, D, 2 Light: Philippine Alcyonaria 157 



obtained best by allowing them to expand in aquaria and adding 

 magnesium sulphate a little at a time until they are so anaes- 

 thetized as to cease to respond to stimuli, after which they may 

 be placed in the preserving fluid. Most of our specimens are 

 preserved in from 4 to 10 per cent formalin and remain much 

 more flexible and keep their color longer than those preserved in 

 alcohol. However, some specimens which have been in formalin 

 for a number of years are beginning to show signs of degener- 

 ation, and alcohol seems to be a better preservative for museum 

 specimens. 



Our collection contains species belonging to each of the four 

 clearly defined and well-known genera of the Cornulariidse : 

 namely, Cornularia Lamarck, Anthelia Savigny, Clavularia Quoy 

 and Gaimard, and Sympodium Ehrenberg. I follow Kiikenthal =* 

 in retaining the well-defined and distinct genus Anthelia and 

 in dropping the generic name Rhizoxenia for which Miiller has 

 recently tried to make a case.* The type species, R. thalassan- 

 tha, judging from Lesson's description ^ and from Haeckel's 

 figures,'' is undoubtedly a species of Clavularia. This makes it 

 necessary to drop the name Rhizoxenia, and if the genus is still 

 retained it must be given Philippi's name Evagora,'' first used 

 for E. rosea (R. rosea of Dana, von Koch, and others) . If the 

 genus is not retained, those of its species whose polyps are 

 entirely retractile will fall within the genus Sympodium; and 

 those whose polyps have a distal moiety retractile within a 

 proximal moiety, within the genus Clavularia. It also seems 

 best, as Schenk ^ has pointed out, to consider Stereosoma cele- 

 bense Hickson ® as a species of Anthelia in order to prevent the 

 possibility of a recurrence of such a confusion of genera as has 

 until recently existed in the family Cornulariidse. Hickson's 

 arrangement of the genera of the Cornulariidse ^° in which he 

 places Cornularija and Stereosoma in a separate family, the 

 Cornulariidse, characterized by their lack of spicules and pre- 



' Kiikenthal, W., Die Stammesgeschichte und die geographische Verbrei- 

 tung der Alcyonaceen, Verhandl. d. deutsch. Zool. Ges. (1906), 138. 



" tJber die Alcyonaceen-Gattung Rhizoxenia Ehrenberg, Mitt. a. d. Zool. 

 Stat, zu Neapel (1910), 20, 94-99. 



' I have not had access to Lesson's work, but the important part of his 

 description is given by Miiller in footnote 1, p. 94, of the volume cited above. 



^Arabische Korallen. Berlin (1875). 



' Zoologische Beobachtungen, Arch. f. Naturg. (1842), 8, 33-45. 



^ Clavulariiden, Xeniiden, und Alcyoniden von Ternate, Abhandl. d. Senk- 

 kenb. naturf. Ges. (1896), 23, pt. 1. 



^ Trans. Zool. Sac. London (1895), 13. 



"The Cambridge Natural History, Coelenterata and Ctenophora (1906), 

 1. 



