1869. ] DUNCAN—CORAL FAUNAS OF WESTERN EUROPE. 5d 
with fetid mud. The branching, bush-shaped and dendroid forms 
are usually found upon a rocky bottom; and the simple corals gene- 
rally select a shelly foundation or a foraminiferous ooze. 
The genus whose species are dwellers in the deep sea, and which 
is most familiar to European naturalists, is Caryophyllia. It is a 
genus whose species are invariably simple in form or solitary ; they 
reproduce by ova alone, and do not form a compound corallum by 
gemmation. 
Alphonse Milne-Edwards* obtained numerous specimens of va- 
rieties of the Mediterranean Caryophyllia arcuata and Caryophyllia 
celavus from a depth of between 2000 and 2800 metres(1110 and 1550 
fathoms) in the sea between Corsica and Algiers. Edward Forbes 
and others, since his time, have obtained Caryophyllia cyathus from 
a depth of from 5 to 200 fathoms. Caryophyllia boreaiis, Fleming, 
has been dredged up by Messrs. MacAndrew, Norman, and Gwyn 
Jeffreys in corresponding depths in the North Sea; Mr. Norman 
dredged up thousands in one spot in 70 fathoms ; and therefore the 
species may be considered a common one over the coralliferous area 
of the western European seas. 
The genus Balanophyllia has species in the Mediterranean at 80 
fathoms ; and Mr. Gwyn Jeffreys has found one at 340 fathoms, off 
the south-west of Ireland. Species of it are found in the deep seas 
off nearly every part of the world that has been mentioned as having 
a neighbouring deep-sea coral fauna. 
Flabellum has a species (Flabellum anthophyllum) in the Mediter- 
ranean, in the Bay of Biscay, and in the North Sea; and others are 
found at considerable depths amongst the remote deep-sea faunas. 
The Nullipore zone of the Mediterranean is inhabited by a species 
of Desmophyllum, which is found in deep water off Madeira and 
Cape Breton. Others have been found off Japan, and in the Pacific 
off the south-west coast of America. 
There is a species of Paracyathus which is found at a depth of 
from 30 to 40 fathoms in the Shetland seas; and the genus is repre- 
sented in the deep-sea fauna of the Mediterranean. 
The genus Sphenotrochus has species in deep water off the Cornish 
coast, the west coast of Ireland, and near the Isle of Arran. 
These are the typical deep-sea simple corals. None of them throw 
forth buds, and they all vary much in shape; the depth of water and 
the nature of the sea-bottom have much to do with the peculiarities 
of some forms. 
The other deep-sea corals are compound Madreporaria. The great 
branching Lophohelia prolifera lives at a great depth in theNorth 
Sea, at more than 400 fathoms on rocky ground off the south- 
west coast of Ireland}, and in deep water in the Mediterranean. 
This is a typical deep-sea form; and the absence of the cellular 
coenenchyma is, with one exception, a characteristic of the deep-sea 
compound corals, just as its presence is almost invariable in the 
species of the reef fauna. A huge branching coral, Dendrophyllia 
* Mém. Acad. des Sci. July 1861. Ann. des Sci. Nat. tome xv. 1861. 
t J. Gwyn Jeffreys’s Report. 
