A NATURALIST IN BRAZIL. 9 
upper part of the beach, as well as from behind, are left 
standing like walls of sandstone running parallel to the 
coast. In scientific books it is generally stated that there 
are no coral reefs on the coast of Brazil. 
While engaged in the late Thayer Expedition under Pro- 
fessor Agassiz, in company with Mr. Edward Copeland, the 
writer discovered some quite extensive reefs in the bays of 
Santa Cruz and Porto Seguro, and made out, in a general 
way, their structure. Fishermen and pilots deseribed the 
reefs of the Abrolhos as precisely like those at Porto Seguro, 
and a note in a chart of Lieutenant Mouchez, which after- 
wards fell into the writer’s hands, left no doubt of the exist- 
ence of extensive coral reefs in that region. The return of 
the Expedition left no time for their exploration, but the 
writer, during his visit to the Brazilian coast last summer, 
gave them a careful examination. : 
Many species of polyps grow along the coast of Brazil, 
even as far south as Cape Frio, and the bay of Rio offers a 
few insignificant coral building species, principally an As- 
trangia or two, which form scattered cells on dead shells or 
stones. There is at Rio quite a number of species of soft- 
bodied polyps, of the order of the Sea-anemones, and some 
of these are very beautiful. In the same bay representatives 
of the highest order of polyps, the Halcyonoids, are not 
numerous. The most interesting is a species of Renilla 
(R. Dane Verrill),* a curious family” of polyps, in which 
all the bodies of the animals are joined together, and clus- 
tered on one side of a leaf-like expansion, to which there is 
a single appendage like a stem, by which the whole moves 
about like a single individual. 
South of Rio de Janeiro there appear to be few polyps 
which have calcareous skeletons; but on the rocky shores 
. northward a few species soon begin to become quite com- 
mon. 

eee f my friend, Professor Verrill, for the determination 
of the Radiates mentioned in this paper. 
AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. II. 2 


