PHOTOTYPE PLATE NO. XX]' 1 1. 41 



corals, or of specimens under artificially induced conditions, will prove welcome. The necessary 

 plan, in either instance, is to arrange for the disposition of the camera in a \-ertical position. 

 This was accomplished bv extemporising a square frame into which the camera fitted, an extra 

 leg, in addition to those of the ordinary tripod, being supplied to support it. A more elaborately- 

 finished apparatus could doubtless be made ; but the results obtainable with the simple means 

 employed sufficed for the author's purposes. A wide-angle lens is, of necessit}', a sine qua iioii for 

 the photography of objects of the natural size at short distances. In the upper of the two figures 

 given, the apparatus is represented as employed, on the foreshore area of one of the Thursday' 

 Island reefs, for the photograph}' of a large sea-anemone /// .s//// and under conditions precisely 

 parallel to those under which the illustrations of the Stinging Anemone, Actinodendron, Plate 

 XXII., and the fully expanded Mushroom-corals, Plate XXIV., were obtained. In the lower of the 

 two figures, the same apparatus is represented as erected on the beach of one of the Barrier coral 

 islets, an abundant supply of suitable subjects for its emplo\'ment having been collected together 

 in the extemporised aquaria of various shapes and sizes, distributed around. The actual scene 

 of this illustration is Rocky Island, about lat. 14-1° S., within sight of the islands known as the 

 Lizard and North and South Diiections ; it constitutes a favourite station for the prosecution of 

 the Beche-de-mer fishing industry. The grass hut partly visible in the background represents 

 the description of tenement commonly constructed for the accommodation of the "boss" or fore- 

 man of the fishing and curing operations, and is also the one which the author occupied, as very 

 comfortable headquarters, during two weeks spent in investigating and reporting upon the 

 Beche-de-mer fisheries of this district. 



Some estimate of the varieties of Trepang or Beche-de-mer obtainable on the neighbouring 

 reefs is afforded by the contents of the large bath in the foreground, which include over half-a- 

 dozen of the most valuable Barrier Reef specific types. Among the occupants of the adjacent 

 receptacles, waiting to "sit" for their portraits, the circular basin invites attention through being 

 fairly filled up with a small specimen of the Giant Anemone Discosonia Haddoiii, which is repre- 

 sented separately in Plate XXI. Before quitting the subject of the author's vertical photographic 

 method, it seems almost superfluous to add that the focussing-cloth, while indispensable in actual 

 practice, has been omitted in each illustration, with the express object of giving a clear view of 

 the apparatus and its mode of utilisation. The method is in itself so simple of application that 

 the hope is entertained that it will be adopted by many voyagers in tropical seas, who would thus 

 be provided with golden opportunities of enriching science with a knowledge of the life-aspects 

 of rare and interesting marine organisms that, even where artistic talent is available, it is almost 

 impossible to render faithfully with brush and pencil. 



