310 IN LOWER FLORIDA WILDS 



merely the hard, outer coating or external skeleton 

 that protects the animal. On a living coral reef 

 mollusks are most conspicuous by their absence 

 or by the invisibility of those present. It simply 

 is not a favorable station save for a few species 

 well concealed by their color markings. A dead 

 reef, on the contrary, is very rich in mollusks but 

 they are mostly carefully hidden. In a newspaper 

 article I once read, the writer told of visiting a coral 

 reef and made statements which made me think he 

 had never seen a reef at all. Among other things 

 he said that the bottom was covered with the 

 loveliest, brightest, and most astonishing shells 

 (mollusks), that they clung to the corals and sea 

 fans, and fairly bespangled the submarine view as 

 do the stars in the heavens on a clear night. Some 

 of my conchologist friends would circle the earth 

 to find that reef. 



It may be well to say a few words here about 

 protection among animals. Most of the members 

 of the animal kingdom are either pursuers or the 

 pursued, while many are both. It is the business 

 of the first to seize and devour the second and 

 of the second to elude the first. Hence the pur- 

 sued have to resort to many tricks and devices to 



