Zoology and Botany. 



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Ellis and Solander, which was clearly based on the most common 

 form of the species. Their description, though brief, is charac- 

 teristic, and they also give the vernacular name, " Brainstone," 

 which is still in use in the Bahamas and Bermudas. Vaughan 

 adopts viridis, the name of one of the color varieties of M. 

 sinuosa, described by Lesueur, 1817. There can be no certainty 

 that this variety pertained to 31. sinuosa, for Lesueur gave to it 

 no characters except the green color. It is well known that the 

 green color, so frequent in coral animals, is generally due to a 

 parasitic unicellular vegetable organism, and it may occur in 

 almost any species of reef corals, so that one can never be certain of 

 the difference or identity of two allied corals having this color, 

 even in the same locality, without studying the hard parts. On 

 this account the name viridis should not be adopted for this 

 species, for it was not connected with any specific characters and 

 therefore has no claims for recognition, even if cerebrum were 

 not available. 



IV.- — Orbicella anmdaris versus 0. acropora: — Mr. Vaughan 

 follows Gregory in adopting acropora (? Linne, ed. xii) in place of 

 the long used name annularis Ellis and Sol. The M. acropora of 

 Linne is utterly indeterminable. The locality was unknown, and 

 the diagnosis so brief and vague that it applies equally well to 

 any one of a dozen or more species of small astrean corals, both 

 Pacific and Atlantic. Nor did Linne refer to any figure in 

 earlier works. It is useless and unfortunate to try to apply the 

 name to the present species and to displace a valid and long- 

 established name by one of extreme uncertainty. I do not know 

 any good reason for such a course, in this case. The name 

 acropora (L.) should be discarded as indeterminable, both gener- 

 ieally and specifically. There is no certainty nor probability that 

 the Linnaean species was the same as annularis, nor is there any 

 good reason to believe that the acropora of Esper and of Edw. 

 and Haime were the same as the acropora of Linne. It is certain 

 that the contemporaries of Linne, like Pallas and Ellis, did not 

 thus identify this species, for they described the annularis under 

 other names. Had this species been what Linne had before him, 

 he would undoubtedly have referred to Pallas, who had already 

 well described it as M. astroites, for he referred to the other 

 species of Pallas. 



V. — Porites polyrnorpha versus P. porites: — Vaughan unites 

 Porites clavaria, P. furcata, and all other branched West Indian 

 forms under Porites pjorites Pallas. We cannot follow Vaughan 

 in adopting Porites porites for it, for such a course would be con- 

 trary to the ordinary principles of elimination which he, himself, 

 employs like others in similar cases. It is true that Pallas and 

 all writers previous to Link (1807) included nearly all the species 

 of Porites then known under the name Madrepora porites, which 

 was a collective or generic group. Esper eliminated one species 

 as M. conglomerata, and another as M. arenosa. Link eliminated 

 another, the present form, by naming it polymorphus. Therefore, 



