230 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 
known as Cup Corals, grow attached to the large Mother-of-Pearl shells in deep 
water, and, obtained in their naturally united state from the divers, are in considerable 
favour as card-baskets or other ‘table ornaments. In addition to these cup-shaped. 
varieties there are various other growth-modifications of the genus Turbinaria which 
may take: the form of flattened discs, encrusting or mound-like masses, or of an 
innumerable host of leaf-like or diversely convoluted lamine. 
By a fortunate coincidence, Mr. H. M. Bernard, M.A., who’ is continuing the 
cataloguing of.the Madreporaria in the British Museum Collections commenced by the 
late Mr. George Brook, had selected the genus Turbinaria for his first attention, and 
was consequently prepared to deal with the extensive series of Australian forms 
collected and presented to the National Collection by the writer, almost immediately 
on their arrival. How substantial an accession this series proved may be gathered 
from the following facts. The catalogue of the genus, now published, indicates that 
fifty-seven species of Turbinaria are contained in the British Museum Collection. Of 
these, twenty-eight specific forms were collected and contributed by the writer from 
the Australian coasts, and out of them no less than twenty were determined by 
Mr. Bernard to be new to science. Of some species, e.g., Turbinaria peltata, and 
T. conspicua, over twenty individual coralla were included in order to illustrate the 
growth phases and remarkable number of modifications of which one specific type was 
susceptible. The writer’s entire Australian collection numbers, in fact, no less than 
one hundred and twenty-six specimens out of the total of two hundred and sixty 
examples from all sources representing the genus Turbinaria described in the British 
Museum Catalogue. 
Apart from the satisfactory score won for the Australian members of this 
generic group from a numerical standpoint, the author has, with relation to the 
specimens most recently obtained from Western Australia, enjoyed the gratification of 
enriching the National Collection with larger examples of Madreporaria or Stony Corals 
than had been hitherto possessed by either the British or any other zoological museum. 
The most remarkable of these examples have been correlated by Mr. Bernard with 
the titles of Turbinaria conspicua and T. peltata, and were obtained in both instances 
from Shark’s Bay. The photographs taken by the writer of two magnificent specimens 
of these two corals, and showing them as now occupying positions of honour in 
the British Museum Coral Galleries, are reproduced on pages 232 and 233. In 
the matter of greatest mass and weight the palm must undoubtedly be awarded 
to the example of Turbinaria peltata, in which the hemispherical aggregation of 
