CORALS OR ANIHOZOA 
PUOJI THE 
CRETACEOUS ROCKS OF SOUTH INDIA. 
Sub-kingdom, ACTINOZOA. 
Class, ANTHOZOA on CORALS. 
Chahacter. — Actinozoa consistinc) of a digestive cavity ^ provided ivitli a single 
opening, ivhich is oral, anal, and genital, internally divided at certain regular dis- 
tances by membranes or laminae projecting towards a real or imaginary axis, lohile 
the upper edge is surrounded by radially disjoosed, generally hollow, tentacles ; male 
and female generative and secretionary organs situated in the so-called loculi between 
the membranes or septa; propagation takes place by ova, or by buds, or partial divi- 
sion ; special organs of the senses, of respiration, and circulation, and, as a rule, 
also of locomotion, are absent. All the Anthozoa are in their natural state 
inhabitants of the sea, or at least of brackish waters. 
The ‘ Histoire Naturclle des Coralliaii’cs’ by Milne-Edwards and Ilaime, 
‘ Klassen und Ordnungcn des Tbierreiches’ by Broun, many treatises of Zoology, and 
recently Fromentel’s Zoophytes in the Paleontologie fran9aise, Vol. VIII, contain 
such detailed accounts of the history, organisation, geographical and geological dis- 
tribution, etc., of this class that it would be quite superfluous to repeat the same in 
this place. It will fully serve our object towards a proper understanding of the 
descriptive portion of this monograph, and the terminology used therein, if I 
attempt to give a brief abstract of the general structure of these creatures, followed 
by a few words on the distribution and classification of the same. 
The Anthozoon in its simple form is a more or less round or cylindrical sac, 
usually sessile by a broad base, on the opposite end provided with a single oral 
opening, surrounded by tentacles, of which there are four, six, eight, or a multiple 
of these numbers present. The oral opening passes through an enlargement, formed 
by an inverted portion of the outer wall of the body, called the stomach, or directly 
into the large internal cavity of the body, which is divided into compartments (the 
so-called locidij by the mesenterial laminm or septa, these being in an equal or 
smaller number present than the tentacles. The mode of development followed in 
these organs is of great systematic importance. There appears to bo no strict 
separation between the animals which possess a so-called stomach, and to wliich the 
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