Zoology and Botany. 75 



the Koh-i-nur has a grayish tinge. As regards purity, cutting, 

 and color the Jubilee is actually perfect, and its form is so sym- 

 metrical that when placed on the small truncated apex of its basal 

 pyramid, the cullet, it stands perfectly balanced, though measur- 

 ing If inches in length, If in breadth, and 1 inch in depth. As 

 originally found, it was an irregular crystal of gigantic size, 

 9 7 If carats. The original crystal had a black spot about the 

 center of the mass, but by cleaving it in two this was removed, 

 and the Jubilee diamond was cut from the larger half. 



III. Zoology and Botany. 



1. Reports on the Natural History of Porto Rico, Bulletin of 

 the U. S. Fish Commission for 1900. 



Among the additional reports received are the following : 



The Stony Corals of Porto Rican Waters ; by T. W. VAUGHAiNr. 

 Pages 289-320, 38 plates. — This is a valuable report includ- 

 ing descriptions of a considerable number of the common West 

 Indian reef -corals (16 species), and a few from deeper w r ater, 

 illustrated by heliotype reproductions of photographs, except 

 plates i, ii, which are from good drawings of the smaller species. 

 The absence of many of the common West Indian corals is 

 very noticeable and indicates merely that the collections of reef- 

 corals were made without much care or energy, on this expedi- 

 tion. The number should have been at least doubled easily. 



Many of the plates are excellent, but some are very unsatisfac- 

 tory, owing either to the poor quality of the photographs used, 

 or else to faulty reproduction. Among the least satisfactory are 

 those of Orbicella acropora, Favia fragum, Agaricia, sp. and "A. 

 dephantotus." But all might, just as well, have been as good as 

 the best. 



The nomenclature adopted is the same as that used by the 

 author in his former paper, on the fossil corals of Curacoa, etc. 

 (1901), and he here repeats the same arguments to sustain his 

 usage. As I have recently printed a paper on the West Indian 

 corals,* in which I have criticized some of his conclusions and 

 adopted a different nomenclature, in many cases, it will not be 

 necessary to go into the details of this subject here. But it may 

 be well to call attention to some of the more important points of 

 disagreement, and which relate to common species. 



I. — Acropora, 18 IS, versus Isopora, 1878,= Madrepora au- 

 thors: — It is well known that Linne (Syst. Nat., ed. x, 1758) did 

 not include in his genus Madrepora any recognized species of the 

 Lamarckian genus of that name, but erroneously placed M. 

 muricata (in which several species were included) in his genus 

 Millepora, although it agrees with his definition of Madrepora. 



* Variations and Nomenclature of Bermudian, West Indian, and Brazilian 

 Reef Corals, with notes on various Indo-Pacific Corals, Trans. Conn. Acad. 

 Science, vol. xi, pp. 63, 168, 26 plates, Dec, 1901. 



