224 



MR. S. O. RTDLEY ON ALCYONAItIA 



the Mascarene and Seychelles Islands having alone, so far as 

 rny knowledge goes, been at all adequately described. Possibly 

 a species or two here set down as new may have been referred to 

 by one or other of the older writers, but, if so, my researches 

 have at any rate failed to detect them. 



Looking at the Alcyonarian Fauna of the Burmese coast 

 generally, we see that it is in no way behind that of any other 

 part of the Indian Ocean, so far as known to us, and in some 

 ways it is decidedly superior to that of other districts. Thus 

 it produces a considerable contingent of the soft and fleshy 

 Alcyoniid section of the Order, Sponyodes and Lobophytumbeing 

 well represented ; I myself described a novel type of an allied 

 genus, Nephthya, from this coast (Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. 5th ser. 

 vol. ix. p. 184); and thus all the members of this group known 

 to us from this coast seem to be peculiar to it. In its richness 

 in species of the family, however, it only agrees with what we 

 know of the other northern parts of the Indian Ocean area, the 

 Red Sea, and Ceylon ; hereby, however, differing somewhat, so 

 far as our information extends, from the more southern parts of 

 that ocean (Australia and the Cape) in the proportion of species 

 of this family to the total number of species collected. Thus 

 the Red Sea is rich in Alcyoniam, SarcopJiytum, and Lobo- 

 pJiytum (see Klunzinger, Korall. Roth. Meeres), and exhibits a 

 very fair muster of the more elegant Sponyodes and Nephthya. 

 Ceylon, again, as shown by collections (as yet undescribed) 

 deposited in the British Museum by Dr. Onuaatje, and made by 

 himself and elucidated by drawings, is rich in Alcyonium, Sar- 

 copkytum, or allied forms. Sponyodes, on the other hand, seems 

 scarce. Gorgoniids, well represented here and in Ceylon, are 

 comparatively scarce in the Red Sea, even typical Indian Ocean 

 forms being absent there but present here. The Burmese fauna, 

 then, may be shortly characterized as distinctly of Indian Ocean 

 fades, hut with a large proportion of species peculiar to it, so 

 far as is known at present # . 



* I should perbapl except Kurrachee from those northern districts of the 

 Indian Ocean with a good Alcyonarian fauna. Among the numerous Coclen- 

 ti-rala received at the Urilish Museum from that locality through the enorgotic 

 Ourator of the Kurrachee Museum, Mr. A. Murray, but as yet, from lack of 

 time and opport unity, unworked out, there are, so far as my memory serves mo, 

 hardly any Ah-yoniiria of these groups. There are, however, sotuo Gorgoniids 

 ft8BOl)g them. 



