KONGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND. |4. N:o 6. 19 
walls as before and building up a new segment in connection with this. In Schizo- 
cyathus there are specimens, where a very small calicle shoots forth from the calicinal 
part of a detached segment and grows out from it in an acute angle and there may 
in this case be a real gemmation. Although there is no direct evidence of the fact, 
it may also be that in this coral it occurs a sort of fissiparity, more essential than in 
other corals, and that there are budding forth new individuals from each of the de- 
tached segments, parts of the parent polyp having been affixed on them. The destruc- 
tion of the old coral has in some instances begun very early, for instance a specimen ha- 
ving a detached section only 2 inillims. in length attached to a complete calicle of 1 
millim. in length. Some specimens have attained a length of 8 millimeters before 
splitting. There are no instances of the calicle having been in such a way renewed 
more than twice. Generally it happens once. There is also a specimen in which a 
new calicle is forthcoming inside an older, without having fractured it. 
Some other corals besides this show the same peculiar mode of growth or gemmation; 
as for instance a Jurassic species, which QUENSTEDT has given the commonplace name Tur- 
binolia impresse (Der Jura p. 587, Tab. 73 f. 87, 88). Flabellum matricida KENT 
(Proceed. Zool. Soc. 1871, p. 276, pl. XXIII, figs 2, 2a) also incereases or propagates 
by the destruction of the old calicle and there it seems to be a real gemmation. That 
the splitting of Schizocyathus is not a gemmation but an interrupted and then con- 
tinued growth of the same individual is corroborated by similar processes of growth 
in others having a very thin and brittle wall as Flabellum laciniatum, Diaseris crispa 
and several others of the Fungide. 
When quite young this coral is attached by a broad basis to small pebbles, from 
which it liberates itself without any traces of having ever been so fixed. 
From Salt Island (in 200 fathoms) there is a very distinct variety. It resembles 
in all particulars the others excepting in having a thick, very spiny and hirsute 
epitheca, and the septa much more granulated. The septal systems are also complete, 
and the third septum is never wanting. 
As to the affinities and systematic position of this species I think it is at present 
very difficult to state anything with certainty as long as the animal itself is unknown 
and it is only provisionally it may retain its place amongst the Cyathin&e. It may 
be questioned whether there is not an Eupsammidean character in the way in which 
the septa of the second order enclose those of the first order, quite as in the young 
Dendrophyllie (PI. III, fig. 40) and perhaps the holes in the wall point in the same 
direction. 
24. Stenocyathus vermiformis POoURTALES. 
RISE io 30,06. 
POoURTALES in Deep Sea Corals p. 10, pl. I, figs. 1 & 2, pl. III, figs. 11-13. 
Off Salt Island in 200—320 fathoms (Dr Gois). Also two small specimens off 
Villa Franca in the Azores in 200—300 fathoms (Exp. of the ”Josephine”). My specimens 
differ very much in their exterior shape from those described by PourtaLEs in being 
