54 
CRETACEOUS CORALS OR ANTIIOZOA 
seplis octodecim suhccqiicdibus, hrecissimis ; coe.nenchymcde confertim minuteque. 
qooroso, poris irregulariter dispositis, gramdis paqnllosis separatis, circiter qidntam 
partem imius mm. distaniihus. 
In its internal strnctnre of tlic cocnencliyma and the eighteen very short septa, 
this cretaceons form is almost qnite identical with the recent species, the type of 
the genus H. coeridea* Grimm, but the calyces ai’c considerably larger. The 
corallum has a fcAV obtuse protuberances, on wbieh tbe calyces are often very close 
together, while in the flattened or concave interspaces the distance between tliem 
increases to 4 and 5 mm. 
Locality. — East of Kauray, in a brown limestone with coarse quartz-grains ; 
only the figured specimen has been found. 
Formation. — Ootatoor group. 
Geneiial hemakks derived from the examination of the South Indian 
CRETACEOUS CORALS. 
As I have already had occasion to observe in my introductory note, tbe examina- 
tion of the corals from the cretaceous deposits in the Triebinopoly and South Arcot 
districts proved no less interesting than that of the other classes of animals, both 
in a zoological as well as geological point of view. 
The conditions of the deposits v'ere not so quiet that we could expect to 
find any of the Alcyonaria or of the Malacodermata preserved, but the Scleroder- 
mata, or Madreporaria, are represented by fifty-seven species, namely, fifty-three 
belonging to the apoeosa, three to the peefoeata, and one to the tabulata. lYitli 
the exception of a single new generic type, for which I proposed the name Placas- 
trea, all the others belong to previously known genera, but the majority of the 
species are new. 
Among the genera there are a few, like Comoseris or Eupsamnda, which had 
not formerly been known to occur in cretaceons rocks ; a few others, like Platycya- 
thus, Psammosmilia, or Stelloria, belong to the rarest fossils, and some ivere 
previously only imperfectly known. 
Looking at the vdiole fauna w^e see the reef-building Astefipje, Sttlixid^, and 
Thamnastefid^ exceeding the other families in numbers of species, as well 
as in frequency of occurrence of specimens. Coral reefs appear to have lieen of 
considerable extent, particularly along the old shores within the Ootatoor group ; in 
tbe two other groups they were much more local. But still there are strong indica- 
tions tliat these local faunae have been much richer than I have been able to show 
from the comparatively scanty materials in our collection. 
* Comp. fig. 11 on pi. xxiv of vol. VII of Denkscb, Akad., Wien, Math. Nat. Wissensch. Klasse, 1854. 
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