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CLASS III.— ORDER IlL 
from the stony, and it is always smaller ; but in the se- 
cond, the name of stony articulation is no longer appli- 
cable ; it is no more than a spongy knot, larger than 
the stony articulation, and often so confounded with 
it, that it becomes difficult to distinguish the limits 
that separate them. This character has induced me 
to place the Melitea immediately after the Coral ; for 
it appears as if Nature in these Polypidoms was be- 
ginning a new order, in forming an axe, or articulated 
skeleton, instead of the stiff continued one of the 
Gorgonias. 
The cells, or rather the polypi of the Melitea, vary 
in their form and situation ; they are either superficial 
or tuberculous, either dispersed or only on the sides ; 
there are some whose border and interior, of a car- 
mine red, blend most agreeably with the lively and 
brilliant citron colour of the rind. 
The colour is pretty uniform in all the Meliteas; 
it is a red passing through all the shades from the 
lightest rose to the deepest purple, and which some- 
times changes to a more or less brilliant yellow. The 
polypi are red when the Meliteas have a yellow rind, 
and yellow when the rind is red. Most of them 
originate in the equatorial seas. 
OCHREOUS. 
1. Melitea ochracea. Homy articulations, pro- 
jecting and spongy ; the stony ones unequal in length, 
smooth in the small branches, furrowed in the greater. 
Indian seas. 
RISSO’S. 
2. Melitea Rissoi . Branches diverging, and ana- 
