| OCR Text |
Show 24 DR. J. E. GRAY ON TWO NEW CORALS. [J.111. 9, 3. Description of a New Species of Toucan belonging to the Genus Aulacoramphus. By J O H N G O U L D , F.R.S., &c. AULACORAMPHUS CYANOLJEMUS. Male. Bill black, with a small mark of yellow at the tip of the upper mandible, and a band of white at the base of both mandibles except on the culmen ; this white band is much narrower on the upper than on the lower mandible, and moreover has the posterior half of its breadth pale yellow ; naked skin around the eyes dull red; throat greyish blue, approaching to violet, and becoming of a deeper tint where it joins the green of the neck ; a tinge of blue also appears at the base of the ear-coverts, towards the bill, and over the eye, where, however, it becomes of a greener hue ; plumage of the head and body deep grass-green, with a wash of yellow on the flanks; primaries black, edged with brown ; under surface of the wing pale yellow; tail-feathers deep green, conspicuously tipped with chestnut; under tail-coverts chestnut-brown ; legs green. Total length of male 12 inches, bill 2-|, wing 5\, tail 5£, tarsi 1|. Female. Precisely similar in colour, but, as is the case with all the other species of the genus, much smaller than the male. Hab. Loxa in Ecuador. Remark.-This well-marked species is allied to the Aulacoramphus cceruleigularis of Panama and the A. atrigularis of Peru, but differs from the former in the smaller extent of the blue on the throat, from the latter in having no trace of black on that part, and from both in the markings of the bill. 4>. Description of T w o N e w Forms of Gorgonioid Corals. By Dr. J O H N E D W A R D G R A Y , F.R.S., V.P.Z.S., &c. The other day a few Corals from Japan were sent to me for examination; and among a series of well-known species of Stony Corals (Melit&a), and several kinds of the coral-like Algce belonging to the genus Corallina and its allies, 1 discovered a small fragment of a Gorgonia-like Coral that was studded with little horny cups, which I was at first inclined to believe were some parasitic animals that had fixed themselves on the coral, for they were entirely unlike any cells that I have ever observed on a Gorgonioid Coral. Careful examination has satisfied me that the little cups are an essential part of the coral, and that the latter is a form entirely new to science, its nearest ally being of the genus Primnoa, the species P. antarctica, found in the Antarctic Seas. It differs entirely from all the other genera of the group in the tubes of the polype being formed of two obconic cells placed one on the other. In Primnoa the cells are produced and covered with calcareous scales, which are imbricated like slates on a house. |
