50 MESOZOIC KADIATA. 



Montlivaultia (Lamx.). 



I have satisfied myself, from the examination of a large suite of 

 both foreign and British species, that the Montlivaultice of La- 

 mouroux are identical in generic character with those corals to 

 which Miinster, Goldfuss, Esper, Blainville, &c. have restricted 

 the name Anthophyllum of Schweigger^ the different ages of the 

 A. decipiens (Gold.) for instance demonstrating the identity of 

 the groups in a single species. This renders the synonymy of 

 the genus Anthophyllum more clear and definite than it has been. 

 That genus was originally established by Schweigger in his 

 ' Beobachtungen, &c. Anat. phys. Untersuchungen iiber Co- 

 rallen' (tab. 6), and defined as agreeing with Turhinolia, except 

 in being fixed and having the margin of the cells dilated ; he di- 

 vided it into five groups : the 1st, '^ cylindri turbinati subsolitarii" 

 since formed into the genus Cyathina (Ehr.) ; 2nd, '^ cylindri tur- 

 binati in ramos connexi,^ being, from the species referred to, equi- 

 valent to the later genus Cladocora (Ehr.) ; 3rd, " cylindri turbi- 

 nati, e basi stirpis diver gentes, versus basin concreti/' might I think 

 be united to his 5th group, which is similarly defined except that 

 the tubes are " lamellis calcareis horizontalibus juncti^^ a differ- 

 ence which disappears on examining specimens of the species he 

 refers to as examples of the groups ; the 4th group, founded on 

 the C. calycularis, is referred by Ehrenberg to his Caryophyllia. 

 It is unfortunate that the characters of this group as oi'igi- 

 nally given are not applicable to any natural genus. Ehrenberg 

 in his 'Beitrage zur Kenntniss der Corallenthiere des rothcn 

 Meeres ' having formed the 1st group into one genus, the 2nd and 

 4th into another,, has retained the name Anthophyllum for the re- 

 mainder {Caryophyllia fastigiata, &c.), while, as above mentioned, 

 nearly all the continental palaeontologists have been in the habit 

 of using it for the veiy different, turbinated corals which now oc- 

 cupy us, and which agree with the general definition of Schweig- 

 ger, though probably not contemplated by him at the time. In 

 the young state those corals are attached by a broad base, which 

 soon becomes carious and hollow as the coral grows, undermi- 

 ning its base even to the thin external wall, which at last gives 

 way, and the corallum thus becomes a free cone with a naked, 

 obtusely rounded apex : some species grow so little vertically, that 

 the separation from the carious hollow old base is effected in a 

 nearly horizontal plane, so that the adult free corallum is scarcely 

 distinguishable from Cyclolites, being circular, thin, flat, the up- 

 per and lower surfaces nearly parallel and both radiated : whether 

 the form be flat or conical, the terminal star is never excavated 

 into a cup, by which the species may be known from Turbinolia 

 and Cyathina, as well as by the obtuseness of the margin (the 



