Illustrated Catalogue of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College No IV Deep-sea Corals

Abstract

COUNT POURTALES had the good fortune to be one of that band of naturalists who, dredging for the first time in deep water between Key West and Havana, came to the conclusion that “animal life exists at great depths in as great an abundance as in shallow water.” This opinion was published in his “Contributions to the Fauna of the Gulf Stream at great Depths” (Cambridge, U.S., 1867). Moreover as a zoophytologist he had the credit of obtaining the first true stony corals from great depths. Numerous corals were dredged up under his superintendence in 1868 and 1869 from off the sea floor of the so-called Straits of Florida in the course of the Gulf Stream, and they were carefully described by him in Nos. 6 and 7 of the last-mentioned work. Now the results of the Deep-sea Dredging so far as the Corals are concerned, appear in the handsome essay in quarto before us; the specific descriptions have been revised, new forms are described, and the illustrations in lithography testify to the excellence of American printing from stone. The interesting coral fauna in the deep sea of Florida has already to a certain extent been compared with that of the cold and warm area of the North Atlantic, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, March 24, 1870; and the new species described by M. de Pourtales, together with the remarks upon the classification of the corals, will probably enhance the importance of the labours of those English naturalists who have undertaken the description of the results of our abyssal dredgings. The great horizontal range of some of the deep-sea corals is as remarkable as the vertical range of others; and M. de Pourtales, although strongly impressed with the importance of some structural characters in the distinction of specific differences which are not thought so valuable and important in England, leans to the belief in these ranges. The American deep-sea coral fauna is not so rich in species, and apparently in individuals, as that of the North Atlantic and Lusitanian Coasts, but there is one form which is found in the globigerina mud off Bahia Honda, Florida, in 324 fathoms, which will always be of interest to the naturalist who studies palæontology. Haplophyllia paradoxa Pourtales, possesses all the essential characters of the Rugosa, and is allied to the simple coral, Calophyllum profundum Germar—the Permian Polycælia profunda of King, but it has been shown to be also allied to Guynia annulata Duncan, a small rugose coral dredged off the Adventure Bank in the Mediterranean. Both Haplophyllia and Guynia have a strong central axis or columella, the existence of which is of generic importance, and it is therefore necessary to ally these two modern representatives of the old Rugosa which dominated in the coral fauna of the Palæozoic age with the Cyathaxonidæ of the Carboniferous rocks. M. de Pourtales is so gentle a critic that if one wished to differ from him in print, the desire would fail. When the Zoological Society print, which they are about to do, the Essay on the deep-sea corals dredged from H.M.S. Porcupine, nothing will be more satisfactory than that an interchange of notes and specimens should take place, so that in a supplement the American and English authors may terminate their unimportant little differences in classification. The beauty and correctness of the illustrations are extreme, and they do the artist, and especially the printer, great credit. It is to be hoped that some English lithographic printer will see the American triumph in this particular, and will forthwith mend his ways. Illustrated Catalogue of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard College. No. IV. Deep-sea Corals. By L. F. de Pourtales, Assistant U.S. Coast Survey. 1871.