No. 1624. DESCRIPTIONS OF HAWAIIAN ALCYONARIA—NUTTING. 558 
the genus Chrysogorgia into subgenera along the lines suggested by 
Versluys simplifies the problem greatly, although, as is usually the 
case in large and widely distributed groups, there is more or less 1n- 
tergradation between the subgenera, and these intergradations will 
doubtless increase with our increasing knowledge. 
In the definitions of groups the writer has endeavored to give 
diagnoses rather than description; to preserve the essential characters 
while avoiding the confusing details that often obscure definition. 
Order eA CM@OINACG AS Vierrilil: 
Polyps single or in colonies without an axis cylinder. 
Family CORNULARID® Verrill. 
Polyps united by stolon-like processes, sometimes forming en- 
crusting or lobular masses from which the individual polyps arise. 
Someones the polyps bear lateral buds. 
Genus CLAVULARIA Quoy and Gaimard (modified). 
Spicules present. Colonies consisting of band-lke stolons from 
which the polyps arise singly, or of branched formis arising from a 
stolon-like or encrusting base. 
The genus as here denned includes the genera Clavularia and 
Telesto of authors, which were differentiated on the basis of the two 
modes of growth above indicated. One of the new species described 
below shows that these two modes are united in a single species. The 
diagnostic feature by which these genera have been separated is 
not of generic, or even specific, rank, and the genera are therefore 
united in the one genus Clavularia. 
CLAVULARIA SPICULICOLA, new species. 
Plate XI, fig. 1; plate XLVII, fig. 1. 
Colony in the form of a creeping stolon which often surrounds a 
long sponge spicule for its entire length, so that the spicule forms a 
sort of false axis. 
At other times the stolon is band-like, covering but one side of the 
spicule. The calyces vary greatly in their distance from each other, 
there being no regularity whatever in their disposition, but they are 
generally quite distant from each other, the distance perhaps aver- 
aging about 5 mm | 
Other colonies exhibit an altogether different habit, taking on the 
typical mode of growth of the genus Zelesto, forming branching 
colonies, of which the branches arise as buds from the body of the 
original or axial polyp. Branches of a second order also occur, and 
