426 
ME, H. N. MOSELEY ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE STYLASTERIDiE. 
Arrangement of Stony Corals” (Ann. and Mag. Nat. Hist., vol. xix., 1847, p. 127). 
The family was made to contain the genus Stylaster alone, and was thus 
characterized : — 
“ Coral minutely porous, cells deep, cylindrical, with six grooves, each ending in a 
pore and a central style.” 
M. Edwards and Haime placed Stylaster in a sub-family, Stylasteracere, from 
which however they excluded J Enina and Disticliopora, although they included 
Axohelia, which is a Madracis. 
Count de Potjrtales, in his “ Deep Sea Corals ” (‘ Illustrated Catalogue of the 
Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College,’ No. 4, 1871, p. S3), writes as 
follows : — 
“ Professor Merrill first recognized the close affinity of Disticliopora, Errina, and 
Stylaster (Bull. Mus. Comp. Zool., No. 3, 1864). In his ‘Notes on the Padiata’ 
(Trans. Conn. Acad., vol. i., 1S70), he adopted a suggestion of mine to make a distinct 
family of the Stylasterkke, which he places in his sub-order Oculinacea, both of us 
overlooking the fact that Gray had already established it,” 
Pourtales, struck by the porous nature of the coenenchym of the coralla of the 
Stylasteridse and other points in the hard structure which he observed, removed the 
Stylastericke from amongst the imperforate corals and ranged them next to the 
Eupsammidae. He fully recognized many strong points of affinity which rendered the 
family a natural one, but failed to ascertain the true character of the organisms 
because he had not opportunity to examine their soft structures. 
The coralla of several species of the family have been known to science from early 
times. The earliest known species, according to M. Edwards and Haime, seems to 
have been Stylaster Jlabelliformis, the Corail blanc of Seba (Thesaurus III., p. 204, 
PI. 110, fig. 10, 1758), whilst Stylaster roseus and Disticliopora violcicea were described 
under the general genus Mctdrepora, by Pallas, in 1766. 
Gray gave the name Stylaster to the genus in 1831 (Zool. Miscell.,^p. 36), and 
described the genus Errina in 1835 (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1835, p. 35). 
Disticliopora was named by Lamark. 
Allopora by Ehrenberg in 1834. 
Cryptohelia was described by M. Edwards and Haime in 1849. 
Pourtales has added a neve genus to the family, viz., Pliobothrus, as one of the 
results of the United States deep sea dredging operations, whilst I here add four 
further genera, viz., Sporadopora, Astylus, and Spinopora, dredged by H.M.S. ‘Chal- 
lenger,’ and Lahiopora, wrongly described by Gray as a Bryozoon, under the name 
Porella. The only extant account of the soft parts of any Stylasterid is that by 
G. 0. Sars, of the animals of Allopora NorwegicaP 
Sars kept a succession of living specimens of the coral in fresh seawater, but never 
* G. 0. Bars. Bidrag til Kundskaben om Dyrelivet paa vore Havbanker. Fork, i Yidenskabs. 
Selskabet i Christiana. 1872, p. 115. 
