14 THE GREAT BARRIER REEF. 



mass to its right, Madrcpora prostmta, was bronze-green with yellow tips ; but it is a species 

 subject to much colour variation. An illustration of a small fragment of this species, in which 

 the green is of a more vivid tone, is illustrated by Fig. i of Chromo plate No. IX. The adjacent 

 figure in the same plate illustrates a showy variety of this species in which the corallum is 

 bright shrimp-pink, with yellow terminations. A yet more slender, erect, profusely branching 

 species of Stags'-horn coral may be observed growing in dense patches near the centre of the 

 picture. This is Madrepora piilchra, remarkable for its attractive coloration. The main stem and 

 branches are usually pale yellow, or buff-white ; and each relatively large terminal cell, or 

 "corallite," is either a delicate china or brilliant turquoise-blue. The polyps associated with 

 these larger terminal areas are, by way of contrast, light emerald-green. 



Among the few additional varieties discernible by close inspection in this reef-view, mention 

 may be made of the encrusting, or foliaceous, coralla of a species of Montipora which varies 

 through innumerable shades of purple, brown, and yellow. A large colony-stock of a golden- 

 yellow variety with white edges may be observed in an almost completely submerged condition, 

 immediately beneath the smaller of the two Madrepora masses, in the sub-central foreground 

 group. Many patches of this same variety may be detected on the main body of the reef, and 

 also, strewn over it, a considerable number of the rounded massive coralla of the cosmopolitan 

 Goniasfrwa Grqyi. Traversing this reef on foot, the author found innumerable mushroom-corals, 

 Fungiae, inhabiting the intervening pools ; the majority of these belonged to a finely-toothed, 

 small-tentacled variety, resembling Fiingia rcpanda. A remarkable example collected on this reef, 

 supporting no less than ten young coralla, is delineated in the upper figure of Plate XXIV. A 

 coral that likewise occurs very abundantly in this locality is the cup coral, Turbinaria cinerascens, 

 which forms cup-shaped or variously convoluted foliaceous coralla of a golden-brown hue, the 

 relatively large polyps that build it up being brilliant yellow. Coloured illustrations of this 

 generic type are included in Chromo plate No. VIII. 



Although the time at the author's disposal did not permit of his making systematic measure- 

 ments of selected coral-growths here, as at Thursday Island, this Port Denison area, which 

 is depicted in the several succeeding reef illustrations, is readily accessible from the township of 

 Bowen. These characteristic views might, consequently, be easily retaken by the camera, with 

 such strict regard to the bearings and landmarks that the reproductions should fulfil the role 

 of a measured survey, and thus assist towards ascertaining the future growth of the more 

 conspicuous coral-stocks. It may be observed, in this relation, that the high land on the 

 horizon of the present reef-view represents Gloucester Island ; Cape Gloucester, on the 

 Queensland mainland, being to the extreme right. Saddle-back Island, which was the scene 

 of several of the subsequent reef-views, lies in the dim distance, midway between the above 

 landmarks. It is faintly visible in the original negative, and may be just discerned in some 

 of the photo-mezzotype reproductions. 



