Report on the zoological collections made in the Indo-Pacific Ocean ...

327ALCYONARIA.BYSTUART 0.RIDLEY.Considerable light has already been thrown from four sources uponthe zoology of the Alcyonaria of the northern and eastern parts ofAustralia—the districts which receive illustration from the presentfine collection. I refer to the collection mad6 hy Mr. F. M. Raynerin the Herald,' that made by Mr. ' J. B. Jukes in the ' Fly, ' in thoseof the Antarctic Expedition under Sir James Ross and the presentSir J. Hooker, and that by the German circumnavigatory expeditionof the ' Gazelle.' In the case of the three British expeditions,the Alcyonaria of chief interest were described by Dr. J. E. Grayin the Proceedings ' of the Zoological Society of London '*, in the'Annals and Magazine of Natural History 't, and in his 'Catalogueof the Lithophytes or Stony Corals in the collection of the BritishMuseum ' (Loudon, 8vo, 1870). The specimens collected by the' Gazelle'were described by Prof. T. Studer in the Monatsbcricht'der Akademie der Wisscnschaften zu Berlin 'J. Studer's is thelargest single contribution to the subject, and describes twenty-fourspecies from Australia, but only from western and north-westernlocalities. The information given by the older writers Lamarck,Lamouroux, Milne-Edwards and Haime is almost all open to thegreat objection of indefiniteness as to locality ; the single speciesdefinitely described by MM. Quoy and Gaimard as collected by the' Astrolabe'in Australia is from the south.The present collection contains thirty-eight species, and may beregarded as giving a good general insight into the character of thoAlcyonarian fauna of the shallow waters of the north-east coast ofAustralia (coast of Queensland, up to and including Torres Straits),and as adding in a most important manner to our knowledge of thesame fauna in the north-western part of this continent. I haveinserted notes on specimens already in the collection where thelocalities were known with certainty; in particxilar a series recentlyobtained by exchange from the Australian Museum, Sydney, andcollected near Port Jackson and on the Queensland coast, has beenof service.Distribution.—The number of localities investigated, and the* 1862, pp. 27, 31, 34 ; 1872, p. 744.t Ser. 3, vol. v. p. 20; ser. 4, vol. ii. p. 441, iii. p. 21.t 1878, p. 633.