190 TABULATE CORALS. 



Lyopora favosa, M'Coy, sp. 

 (PL VIII., figs. 3, 3 a, and PL IX., figs. 2, 2 a.) 



Palaopora (?) favosa, M'Coy, Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., sen 2, voL vi. p. 



285, 1850. 

 ,, favosa, M'Coy, Brit. PaL Foss., p. 15, PL I. c, fig. b, 1851. 



Heliolites {Palaopora) favosus, Salter, Quart. Journ. GeoL See, voL vii. p. 



170, 1851. 

 Lyof era favosa, Nicholson and R. Etheridge, jun., Mon. Sil. Foss. Girvan, p. 



26, PL II., figs. i-\ e, 1878. 



Spec. Char. — Corallum composite, massive, spheroidal, hemi- 

 spherical, pyriform, or irregular in shape ; the corallites sub- 

 cylindrical, elliptical, hexagonal, or irregular in outline, firmly 

 united with one another. Calices usually circular or hexagonal, 

 averaging a line and a half in diameter, the lip coarsely granu- 

 lar. Walls imperforate, extraordinarily thick, the interspaces 

 between any two contiguous tubes being occupied by dense 

 calcareous tissue, of from three - quarters of a line to more 

 than a line in thickness, sometimes with minute and irregu- 

 lar vacuities. Septa rudimentary, often wanting in individual 

 calices, varying in number from two or three up to ten or 

 twelve or more, always abortive, and represented only by rough 

 and blunt ridges on the interior of the wall. Visceral chamber 

 crossed by strong, solid, complete tabulae, distant from a line to 

 a line and a quarter from one another. 



Obs. — Having discussed the characters of the genus Lyopora, 

 of which this is the only recorded species, at some length, it is 

 unnecessary to dilate upon the above specific diagnosis. The 

 reference of this curious form by Milne-Edwards and Jules 

 Haime to Heliolites inter stindus, Wahl. (Brit. Foss. Corals, p. 

 250), has been shown by Mr R. Etheridge, jun., and myself 

 (loc. cit. supra), to have been caused by the erroneous figures 

 given by M'Coy of its internal structure. The form of the 

 corallum is very variable, but it was rooted at its base to some 

 foreign body, and the diverging corallites seem to have opened 

 over the whole of the free surface, no traces of an epitheca 



