On Observations during the Voyage of H.M.S. ' Challenger.' 569 



1000 fathoms. Some of the most interesting forms, such as Stepliano- 

 phyllia, occur at small depths (120 and 92 fathoms); whilst Hajplophyllia 

 and Guynia, believed by Pourtales and Duncan to belong to the Rugosa, 

 are from 324 fathoms and 92 fathoms respectively. The most widely 

 distributed and most abundant deep-sea coral, which extends to nearly 

 twice the depth to which any other coral attains, viz. Fungia symmetrica, 

 belongs to a genus which is not known to occur in the fossil state *. 

 The whole family of the Stylasteridae, of which six genera occur in the 

 deep water (one of them, Cryptohelia, being one of the only four genera 

 which extend to a depth of 1500 fathoms, and the only compound coral 

 amongst these), is recent only. 



No coral in any way allied to the Eugosa has been dredged by the 

 * Challenger.' 



IV. Preliminary Report to Professor Wyville Thomson, F.R.S., 

 Director of the Civilian Scientific Staff, on Observations 

 made during the earlier part of the Voyage of H.M.S. 

 ' Challenger/ By the late Dr. Rudolf von Willemoes-Suhm, 

 Naturalist to the Expedition. (Published by permission of 

 the Lords of the Admiralty.) Received February 14, 1876. 

 Read March 16. 



On our way from England to Lisbon we had continually very bad 

 weather, and could hardly do any thing but put books and instruments 

 into their proper places. In Lisbon we paid frequent visits to the 

 Museum, the fauna of Setubal (near the capital) being particularly 

 interesting, as it is one of the few places in which deep-sea animals 

 go up into shallower water and are accessible to fishermen. Professor 

 Barboza showed us the Hyalonema which had been got there, and 

 pointed especially to the sharks and Chimseridse which have been dis- 

 covered near Lisbon. On our way to Gibraltar we had some dredgings, 

 but were in the latter place more busy at getting up the catalogue of 

 books and instruments, which since that time has been printed by order 

 of the Admiralty. We also visited nearly daily the Gibraltar market, 

 without, however, finding any thing that was particularly interesting. 



Only when we left this port we got into proper working order ; and I 

 began to examine more especially the worms which were brought up, a 

 class to which I had paid much attention before joining this expedition, 

 more especially the Annelids and Gephyreans. I made sketches of the 

 former, and was, however, very much astonished to find that they all 

 agreed very much with the genera of shallower water — a fact which 

 has since been corroborated by Professor Ehlers's interesting paper on 



* Future comparison of specimens may, however, show a relation between some of 

 the varieties of the species here called F. symmetrica and some Lophoserinae. 



