184 THE OCEAN WORLD. 
deposit which has the appearance of a star of radiating acutely- 
pointed lamellz above, and simple rays, full of wrinkles, beneath. 
There are several species, mostly natives of the Pacific and Indian 
Oceans and Red Sea, which De Blainville arranges in three groups, 
according as they are simple and circular, simple and compressed, 
or complex and oblong. In Fungia echinata, represented in Fig. 66, 
we have a species which inhabits the Indian and Chinese Seas. It 
belongs to the last group, being oblong in form, convex above, and 
concave below. The hollow, from which the lamellze or chamber- 
walls proceed, are of considerable length ; the toothed partitions are 
very irregular, thin and prickly, resting upon their lower edge, leaving 
the concave portion of the field free to a crop of excrescences, 
resembling the roof of a grotto studded with small stalactites. 
The appearances presented by the soft parts of the polyps have 
been described by many travellers. The upper portion of the body 
of the animal, corresponding to the lamelliform part of the polypidom, 
is furnished with scattered tentacula, very long in some species, and 
‘remarkably short in others, these tentacula appear to terminate in a 
small sucker. In order to complete our description of these curious 
madrepores, we may refer to Pungia patella, represented in Fig 67. 
This remarkable species inhabits the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, 
and is here represented with its polyps. 
De Blainville gave the name of MaprEepor#a to the second 
group of the stony Zoantharia, and they correspond to the Madrepores 
perforés of Milne-Edwards, The skeletons of this section are generally 
arborescent, with small, partially lamelliform cells, which are con- 
stantly porous in the interstices of the walls of the cells, this being 
their most important characteristic. Thus, the polyps present no side 
plates, the visceral chamber being open from the base to the summit, 
and is neither filled with dissepiments nor with plates. 
The history of these inhabitants of the deep is extremely obscure, 
the most beautiful of the species are intertropical, and consequently 
were for a long time beyond the reach of discriminating obseryers 
during the life of the animal. Solander proposed to divide the group 
according to certain characteristics in the growth of the coral, and 
De Blainville has re-arranged the groups formed by Lamarck, 
Lamouroux, and Goldfuss, with special reference to the structure of 
the soft parts of the animals figured by Lesueur, Quoy, Gaimard, and 
others, who have observed them in a recent state. 
The perforated Zoantharia form two very natural families: the 
Madreporing and the Poritine. The first have the solid parts of the 
