| OCR Text |
Show 1899.] ANTIPATHARIAN CORALS OF MADEIRA. 819 Gen. ANTIPATHES. Shrub-like, branches not fusing; spines numerous, strong. Poly ps large ; tentacles six, radiating, one pair in a line with the oral slit inserted low down, the others at the margin of the peristome. ANTIPATHES FURCATA Gray. Antipathes furcata, Gray, P. Z. S. 1857, p. 291. Antipathes ? furcata, Brook, Antipatharia of the ' Challenger,' p. 104, pl. xi. fig. 2. N o specimen of this species has been met with by me, but Gray's type, obtained by N . Mason at Madeira in 1857, is in the British Museum. Brook believed it to be only a branch of the entire corallum. The habit is different from that of the other bushy Black Corals of Madeira. In order to enable collectors to identify any specimens that may occur, an abbreviation of Brook's description is here given. The specimen is 16 centim. (Q\ in.) high. The axis is very slender and bears a number of elongate bristle-like branches, which are directed subvertically and reach to about the same height. The branches give off secondary branches at irregular intervals, and the longer ones bear a third series of branchlets, usually on one side ouly. Nearly all the branchlets are directed upwards and most of them reach the apex of the corallum, and thus it has a corymb-like aspect. The spines are short, triangular, and compressed, with the apex at right angles to the axis. Six longitudinal rows can be seen from one aspect, and the spines in a row are three or four times their o wn height distant from one another. Polyps ? Hab. Madeira (Mason) : British Museum. Geu. ANTIPATHELLA Brook. Branching in one plane, branches not fusing together; spines short, upright; polyps small, with six tentacles, in two series of three each. ANTIPATHELLA GRACILIS (Gray). (Fig. II., p. 820.) Antipathes gracilis, Gray, Ann. & Mag. Nat. Hist. ser. 3, vol. vi. 1860, p. 311 ; not Antipathella gracilis, Brook, Antipatharia of ' Challenger,' p. 113. In 1860 Dr. Gray (loc. cit.) gave a short description of a small and delicate antipatharian from Madeira and assigned to it the specific name gracilis. In 1888 Mr. Brook, when preparing his monograph of the group, was not able to find in the British Museum any specimen from Madeira bearing that name ; but he found there a Black Coral from the West Indies to which was attached a label with the name in Gray's handwriting of Antipathes gracilis. Under these circumstances, Brook in his Beport described the West-Indian specimen under the name of Antipathella gracilis (Gray). This was a mistake which he would not have committed |
