NARRATIVE. 47 



which grew in extraordinary abundance on the surrounding rocks ; even the little 

 inlet used by Captain Bayley as a dock for his boat, and the stone mole where we 

 disembarked, were closely gemmed with them, and in a few hours I had added 

 considerably to my collection of corals. A very large proportion of the multifarious 

 forms of animal life, which are distributed over the coral reefs near Galle, were to be 

 seen crowded together in this narrow space huge black sea-urchins and red starfish 

 numbers of crustaceans and fishes, brightly coloured mollusca, strange worms of 

 various classes, and all the rest of the gaudy population that swarms on coral reefs 

 and lurks between the branches. For this reason, Captain Bayley's bungalow . . . 

 is particularly well-fitted to be a zoological station, and is only half an hour's distance 

 from the conveniences of the town." 



However, after full consideration, we differed from our German friend and decided 

 to recommend a site in the Fort as the best position at Galle (see below, p. 92). 



On two of these days we landed with a party of our Maldivians carrying ship's 

 buckets, and, crossing the town, descended the ramparts of the Fort between 

 "Triton" and "Neptune" Bastions (see fig. 6), in order to collect on the coral reef 

 which fringes the shore along this side of the town, and in order to examine the 

 possibilities of the lagoon inside the reef for purposes of pearl oyster work. The reef 

 there runs at an average distance of about 500 feet from the shore, and the lagoon 

 varies in depth at low tide from 1 to 6 feet. It is possible to wade over the greater 

 part of it at a depth of 18 inches or 2 feet. The collecting is very rich, and the 

 colouring gorgeous. Many common genera of Corals, such as Madrepora, Montipora, 

 Pocilopora, and Galaxea, greenish-brown Meandrina, vivid grass-green Astrcea or 

 Favia, and others abound, but even more conspicuous in many parts of the lagoon 

 are huge colonies of the massive leathery or slimy Alcyonaria belonging to the genus 

 Sarcophytum and its allies Sclerophytum, Lobophytum, Sinularia and Alcyonium. 

 We obtained about twelve species of the fleshy Alcyonaria in the lagoon, including 

 Sarcophytum ehrenbergi, Sclerophytum polydactylum, Scl. durum, Scl. densum, 

 Lobophytum kedleyi, L. pauciflorum, L. densum, Alcyonium pachycladis, and about 

 four other species some of which are probably new to science. Amongst the other 

 fixed forms Nullipores and incrusting Polyzoa are much in evidence forming smooth 

 layers, filling up crevices and cementing together the separate coral colonies, branches 

 and broken masses. (Stanley Gardiner has shown the importance of Nullipores in 

 the formation of reefs. I am inclined to think from what I saw at Galle and also on 

 the coral formations in the Gulf of Manaar that incrusting calcareous Polyzoa plav 

 at least as important a part in covering and consolidating the fragile, broken, or 

 decaying coral colonies. The more abundant and characteristic Algae (other than 

 Nullipores) growing over the dead corals on this reef are : A small Corallina, three 

 species of Caulerpa (probably C. racemosa, C. plumaris, and C. sedoides), Halimeda 

 tuna., Padma commerssonii, Peysonnelia rubra, and the lace-like Vovnvoorstia 

 spectabilis. Bright green Zoanthids, one a long cylindrical form with two rows of 



