36 
With respect to the madrepora fungites and madrepora patella, I do 
not know of any corresponding fossil. To the madrepora cyathus of 
Ellis, the last of the single starred corals, which is also figured by Count 
Marsilli* and Plancus,-f- the fossil figured Plate IV. Fig 5, bears some 
resemblance ; but the agreement, however, is by no means sufficient to 
authorize the belief that they are of the same species. In the specimen 
figured by Ellis, the lamellae are forty in number, with as many interme- 
diate small ones ; but the lamellae in this fossil do not come near to that 
number. This indeed is of itself a circumstance which would be but of 
little weight, if their other characters closely agreed. This corallite 
which is attached to its matrix, a piece of lime-stone, composed of mi- 
nute fragments of marine bodies, bears, in its first joint, indeed, some 
resemblance to the m. cyathus ; but it is, as may be seen in the figure, a 
proliferous coral, which circumstance is not referred to by either 
Plancus, Marsilli, or Ellis, in their accounts of the recent coral. 
* Histoire Physique du la Mer. P. 153. 
"t Plane de Conchis minus notis. P. 112. 
