Abstract
IN the preparation of this important catalogue Mr. Bernard was confronted with the difficulty, experienced by nearly all naturalists who have attempted to arrange corals in specific groups, that the characters afforded by the skeletal structures only are so variable that there is no possibility of accurately defining the limits of “species.” This is a difficulty which is wont to grow rather than dwindle as our knowledge of specimens of a genus increases, and Porites being a common and widely distributed coral, represented in the museum by very many specimens from numerous localities, the difficulty presented itself in a particularly exaggerated form.
Catalogue of the Madreporarian Corals in the British Museum (Natural History).
Vol. v., The Family Poritidæ, ii., The Genus Porites, Part i., Porites of the Indo-Pacific Region. By Henry M. Bernard. Pp. vi + 303 + xxxv plates. (London: The Trustees of the British Museum, 1905.)
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Catalogue of the Madreporarian Corals in the British Museum (Natural History) . Nature 73, 412 (1906). https://doi.org/10.1038/073412c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/073412c0