X. D, 2 Light: Philippine Alcyonaria 159 



Philippines — we have specimens from Mindoro and Palawan — 

 makes it the most widely distributed and commonest species of 

 the genus. Undoubtedly it will be found to be a common species 

 in the other islands of the East Indies if, indeed, it has not 

 already been described from those regions under another name. 



The three or four other species of the genus in our collection 

 are each represented by but a few specimens, and some or all 

 of them are probably new to science. One is interesting in that 

 it appears to be similar to Rhizoxenia primula Dana," but the 

 polyps are connected by a slender creeping stolon attached to 

 a piece of dead Millepora. It seems very probable, as Dana 

 himself suspected, that such a stolon existed in his specimen, - 

 but was overlooked when the drawing was made. Another 

 beautifully expanded specimen agrees very closely with May's 

 Clavularia longissima which is, of course, a species of Anthelia. 



Next in number of species and in distribution in the Philip- 

 pines is the genus Clavularia Quoy and Gaimard, of which there 

 are specimens of 3 or more species in our collection. Conspicuous 

 among these are numerous specimens of Clavularia (Hicksonia) 

 viridis Quoy and Gaimard. This, as Hickson predicted,^^ is one 

 of the common, it not the commonest species of Clavularia on 

 our reefs. Its habits agree exactly with those given by Hickson 

 for the same species in Celebes. Kiikenthal ^^ speaks of this 

 species under the names Anthelia celebensis and Anthelia viridis. 

 This is probably to be accounted for by Hickson's misleading 

 statement "in habit it (Clavularia celebensis) is very similar to 

 C. viridis." The species described by Hickson as Clavularia 

 celebensis must be considered as a species of Anthelia, but the 

 species described and figured by Quoy and Gaimard ^^ and by 

 Hickson as Clavularia viridis is distinctly different, and since 

 it has polyps whose distal portions are retractile within their 

 proximal portions it is a species of Clavularia, unless the facts 

 that the stolons originate at different heights on the polyps and 

 that it has a horny skeleton be considered sufficient to place it 

 in a separate genus (Hicksonia) .^^ 



A careful investigation of the anatomy of Clavularia viridis 



" Dana, J. A., United States exploring expedition during the years 1838, 

 1839, 1840, 1841, 1842, under the command of Charles Wilkes, U. S. N. 

 Atlas. Zoophytes. Philadelphia (1849). 



" Trans. Zool. Soc. London (1895), 13. 



^'Verhandl. d. deutsch. Zool. Ges. (1906), 142. 



^'Zoologie du Voyage de I'Astrolabe (1834). 



'' Delage and Herouard, Les Coelenteres. Traite de Zoologie concrete. 

 Paris (1901), 3. 



