THE 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
VoL. xiii. — SEPTEMBER, 1879. — No. 9. 
BRAZILIAN CORALS AND CORAL REEFS. 
BY RICHARD RATHBUN. 
g- first accurate information regarding the character and 
extent of the Brazilian coral reefs, as well as of the sandstone 
reefs, dates from the earlier explorations of the late Prof. Hartt 
in Brazil. Prior to the publication of his general work, referred 
to in the June number of this journal, there existed only a few 
imperfect notices of corals and coral banks on the Brazilian 
coast. Spix and Von Martius, during their South American 
travels in the early part of this century, discovered patches of 
living and dead corals at several localities along the sea coast of 
Buhin: but they did not stop to fully investigate them or extend 
their observations, and the corals they collected were erroneously 
referred to old Lamarckian species. 
Darwin, who touched at the Abrolhos isfands, saw corals grow- 
ing upon the shore, but overlooked the vast and curious reefs 
that occupy so much of the surrounding region. On the author- 
ity of others, however, he states that around these islands “the 
bottom of the sea is entirely coated by irregular masses of corals, 
which, although often of large size, do not reach the surface and 
form proper reefs.” In this he was partly right, but very largely 
wrong, as we shall see farther on. Darwin also refers to coral 
reefs at Maceio and Pernambuco, and Prof. Dana mentions a reef 
near the latter place. Other observers had increased the number 
of localities where coral reefs occur, so that when Prof. Hartt 
began his studies of these structures, we were already acquainted, 
in a general way, with a line of scattered, and often widely sepa- 
rated, coral reefs and banks extending from the Abrolhos islands 
northward to Maranhão. Our information respecting them was, o os 
VOL, XIII.—wNo. 1X. 37 
