president's address SECTION D. 341 



While we know so little of the life of our beaches and estuaries, 

 we, of course, know still less of the life of the deep sea. A few casts 

 by the "Gazelle" and the "Challenger" are the only attempts made 

 to penetrate beyond a few fathoD^s. 



A magnificent field of research which lies at the convenience 

 of the Queensland naturalist is the Great Barrier Reef. Here is the 

 finest show of corals, and possibly the richest marine fauna in the 

 world. And here, perhaps, is the best view point for considering the 

 vexed questions of coral growth. In the Central Pacific the atolls 

 are of great size, and separated from one another by ereat distances 

 ■of open sea. Many are perched en the summits of huge submarine 

 mountains, and it is questionable how their development may be dis- 

 torted by the features of their foundation. But in Queensland the 

 student may inspect rapidly and with ease innumerable miniature 

 models of atoll growth. The small size of these admits of more intelli- 

 gible survey. Their number and proximity allow an easy comparison, 

 and the level floor on which they are based eliminates the irregularity 

 which a mountain peak may reflect in its superincumbent atoll. 



As an unworked field in ecology, I invite your attention to the 

 mangrove swamp. The whole facies of this strange fauna and flora, 

 which lies, as the sailors say, between wind and water, is utterly 

 unlike that of the open sea or of fresh water. To pass in a few yards 

 from one to the other is as great a change of scene as to travel half 

 round the world or to step from one geological period to another. 



It has been the fashion to regard a mangrove swamp as a 

 noisome, repulsive, and unpleasant place. But I find it pretty, inter- 

 esting, and attractive. Looking down from a hilltop, the mangrove 

 Bwamp stretches below like some vast green meadow, and if the tide 

 be full the green is veined with silver. Transported to the silver 

 streak one may row up a long green lane hedged in by walls of dense 

 and glossy foliage. 



To my taste, the mangrove flora is both quaint and beautiful. 

 A delightful recollection of bygone years is a stream winding through 

 a glorious avenue of dwarf Nipa palms, whose lordly fronds arched 

 over 30 ft. of water. Again, I have a picture in my mind's eye of 

 still water, in the foregTound, then an expanse of brown mud, where 

 a litter of calling crabs have burrowed; they raise the deflant claw, 

 and illumine the mud bank with vivid scarlet or orange patches ; behind, 

 the hedge of mangrove a,dvancing on great stilt roots of hoops arch- 

 ing from a complex of great and greater hoops. Above and beyond a 

 background of dark and glossy foliage massed like an orange grove. 



In adverse climates the pioneer of the mangrove forest is Avicen- 

 nia, which as a dwarfed bush struggles south to New Zealand and South 

 Australia. Before the Queensland border is reached, first ^Egiceras 

 and then Rhizophora has joined it and going north the forest gains 

 recruits with every few degrees of latitude. 



For protection against wind and weather the mangrove forest is 

 girt with the tough, firm-rooted Rhizophora. Behind its shelter grow 

 the weaker trees. Where the water turns from brackish to fresh is 

 the sweet-smelling ^Egiceras. A delightful chapter in the story of 

 this weird world is Dr. H. B. Guppy's account of the fructification of 



