294 



Dr. P. Martin Duncan on the 



[Mar. 24, 



The same identity must be asserted for Lophohelia offi-nis, Pourtales, 

 which was dredged up in 195 fathoms off Coffin's Patches, Florida. 



Lophohelia prolifera exists in the Mediterranean Sea and the sea between 

 Scotland and Norway. 



Lophohelia anthophyllites is an East-Indian form ; but its absorption into 

 Lophohelia prolifera suggests explanations concerning the Cainozoic pro- 

 genitor, and how it migrated eastwards. 



The relation of the recent East-Indian Coral-faunas to those of the 

 European and West-Indian Cainozoic deposits has been noticed and 

 admitted for some years past. 



The Cainozoic Lophohelia of Sicily is the earliest form of the genus ; and 

 those which are found in such remote parts of the world as the East Indies, 

 the Florida coast, the Norwegian coast, and the Mediterranean, and which 

 have been determined to belong to different species, are, from the study of 

 the curious assemblage of variable forms now under consideration, evidently 

 varieties of the old type, Lophohelia prolifera. I have therefore absorbed 

 the old species L. anthophyllites, L. subcostata, L. affinis, L. Defrancei, 

 and L. gracilis. 



Two genera of the Oculinidce in the classification of MM. Milne-Edwards 

 and Jules Haime have always been most difficult to distinguish ; and now 

 the results of the dredging off the north of Scotland and off Florida and 

 the Havana necessitate the absorption of one of them. 



Amphihelia and Diplohelia. — The first containing recent species only at 

 the time of the enunciation of the classification just referred to, and the 

 last having fossil species only, were very likely to be considered separate 

 genera. Diplohelia had species in the Eocene aud in the Cainozoic 

 seas. Amphihelia was known to have species in the Mediterranean fauna, 

 and in that of Australia also. Seguenza, however, described some Amphi- 

 helice and Diplohelice from the Sicilian tertiary deposits which were iden- 

 tical so far as generic attributes are considered, the only distinction being 

 a doubtful raggedness of the septal edges. The habit and the method of 

 growth and gemmation of the forms were the same. M. de Pourtales 

 dredged up a branching form from off the Havana in 350 fathoms, and 

 from off Bahia Honde, near Florida, in 324 fathoms, and also in lat. 28° 

 24' N., long. 79° 13' W., in 1050 fathoms (came up with the lead). This 

 he named Diplohelia profunda. On referring to Seguenza's plates and 

 descriptions* of the fossil corals from the Sicilian Tertiary deposits, there 

 is no difficulty in deciding upon the very close affinity of the species de- 

 scribed by Pourtales and Diplohelia Meneghiniana, Seg., and Diplohelia 

 Doderleiniana, Seg., fossil forms from the mid-tertiary deposits. 



But on comparing these forms with one exquisitely figured by Seguenza, 

 ' and which he calls Amphihelia miocenica, Seg., the generic affinities of all 

 become startlingly evident (tab. xii. figs, lb, \c, 3b & 3c, op. cit.). 



The very numerous specimens of small branching Oculinidce which 



* Seguenza, I. c. 



