246 BRITISH FOSSIL CORALS. 



The British Silurian corals differ but little from those of Gothland, and resemble also 

 very much those (in small number) that have been met with in the corresponding rocks of 

 Bohemia, but are generally distinct from those of the Silurian deposits of North America- 

 The total number of species discovered in the various Silurian deposits amounts to 129, and 

 with the exception of 8, they all belong to our divisions of Zoantharia tabulate/, and 

 Zo. rugosa ; one of which zoological forms is comparatively rare in the present time, 

 and the other belongs exclusively to the palaeozoic period. Seventy-six of these corals 

 are found in England, and about half of these have not been met with elsewhere. 

 Most of these British fossils (sixty-eight species) belong to the families of Favositidse and 

 Cyathophyllidse ; and the only species not appertaining to the above-mentioned higher 

 divisions are four Fungidae. 



The principal palasontological collections, from which we have obtained the specimens 

 studied and described in this chapter, are those of the Geological Society of London, of 

 the Museum of Practical Geology, of Mr. Fletcher (Dudley), of Mr. John Gray (Dudley), 

 of Mr. Bowerbank, Mr. Charles Stokes (London), of M. Bouchard-Chantereaux (Boulognc- 

 sur-Mer), of M. de Verneuil, and of the Museum of Natural History of Paris. 



Most of these corals belong to the upper Silurian rocks, and those found in the lower 

 Silurian deposits are in general very ill preserved and unsatisfactorily characterised. We, 

 therefore, have not deemed it necessary to devote a separate chapter to their description. 



Family FUNGIDAE, {Introd., p. xlv.) 

 Genus Pal^eocyclus, (Introd., p. xlvi.) 

 1. PaLuEocycltjs porpita. Tab. LVII, figs. 1, la, lb, \c. 



Fossile querfurtense, D. S. Buttners, Corallogr. Subterr., p. 25, tab. iii, fig. 5, 1/14. 



Fungitarum capitula, parva, striata, &c, Magnus Bromel, Acta Liter. Suec, vol. ii, p. 446, 



figs, a— h, 1728. 



Madrepora simplex, orbicularis, &c, Fongt, Amaen. Acad., t. i, p. 91, tab. iv, fig. 5, 1/49. 



Madrepora porpita, Linne, Syst. Nat., edit, xii, p. 1272, 1767. 



Cyclolites numismalis, Lamarck, Syst. des Anim. sans Vert., p. 369, 1801. 



Porpites hemisphericus, Schlotheim, Petrefactenkunde, 1st part, p. 349, 1820. 



Madreporites porpita, G. Wahlenberg, Nov. Act. Reg. Societ. Scient. Upsal., vol. viii, 



p. 95, 1821. 



Cyclolites numismalis, Hisinger, Leth. Suec, p. 100, tab. xxviii, fig. 5, 1837. 



Paljeocyclus porpita, Milne Edwards and Jules Haime, Introd., p. xlvi, 1850. — Polyp. 

 Foss. des Terr. Palseoz. (Arch, du Mus., vol. v.), p. 204, 1851. — 

 Ann. des. Sc. Nat., 3d ser., vol. xv, p. 110, 1851. 



Corallum discoidal ; its under surface flat, covered with a strong epitheca, presenting 

 concentrical wrinkles, and completely free, or provided with a conical, curved, flat 



