32 
RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 
If this fossil be not a Columnaria, but a Favosite, then only one of 
two explanations is possible. Either the mural pores are confined 
to the angles of the prismatic tubes, or they are effaced by 44 com- 
plete recrystallisation or replacement . ” The former state could 
hardly exist without some trace of them being visible in one or 
another of the tube vertical sections, whilst the coral has not 
undergone sufficient alteration for the pores to be wholly effaced 
by the latter process. Had there been the slightest trace of these 
structures, I should have regarded this coral simply as an aberant 
form of that large and important family. 
Increase took place by intra-mural gemmation, the interpolation 
of new tubes produced from the lip of the calicine wall of a pre- 
existing corallite, of which there are several instances in the 
longitudinal sections before me. In transverse sections these 
young tubes are triangular or quadrangular in outline, and 
situated in the angles between the older. The method of in- 
crease therefore accords with that of C. alveolata, Goldf., and 
differs from that of C. calicina , Nich. 
The main points relied on for the identification of this coral as 
a Columnaria are (1) the absence of mural pores combined with 
the general Favositiform structure of the corallites, both points 
strongly insisted on by those who have written on this group ; 
(2) the great regularity of the tubes and tabulse, producing at 
once an entirety that is difficult to put into words, but apparent to 
any one who has examined authenticated examples of Columnaria , 
or as it was at one time better known, Favistella ; (3) the absence 
of distinctive features of any other genus at all resembling it on a 
cursory examination. Under these circumstances I beg to pro- 
pose for it the name of Columnaria pauciseptata , in allusion to 
the limited number of septa present, a point that will now be 
briefly touched on again. 
Although numerous new species have, more or less perfectly, 
been described, indeed the late Prof. Ferdinand Roemer* recorded 
no less than eleven, only about three seem to be at all well known, 
and these chiefly through the labours of my old friend Prof. Alleyne 
Nicholson. f They are C. alveolata , Goldf uss (ram Hall, nec Billings, 
Rominger, &c.), C. calicina, Nich., and C. ? halli , Nich. ( = C. alveo- 
lata , Hall, Billings, Rominger, &c., non Goldf uss.) 
In C. alveolata there are in all 24-30 septa, although Rominger j 
says 20-30, the primaries sometimes extending to the centre of the 
calices ; in O. calicina 28 ; in C. ? halli 20-40, and all quite 
# Lethaea palseozoica, 1883, Lief. 2, p. 464. 
f Loc . cit .. pp. 191-202. 
J Report Geol. Survey Michigan, Lower Peninsula, iii., 1876, Pt. 2, p. 91 
(as C. stellata). 
