254 ALONG THE FLORIDA REEF. 



feet again, th is singular performance being repeated 

 time and again before the lookers-on. The pigeons 

 Tom trained so that they would alight upon his 

 head and shoulders when he entered the yard, 

 while even the chickens were educated, to the 

 astonishment of the boatswain, who one day, 

 when he saw one of the old gopher turtles walk- 

 ing slowly off with a cat upon its back, raised 

 his hands and announced that " them boys took 

 the constraint out of onything he'd ever seen." 



The pet-house was so arranged that the 

 water came into the yard at high tide, when 

 ducks, geese, gulls, pelicans, cranes, rail, and the 

 purple gallinule waded, picking up the shrimps, 

 worms, and other animals that came out, and 

 presenting at such times a singular scene. 



Dana's astrangia (Astrangia Dance, Agassiz): c, a growing cluster; a, a 

 single polyp enlarged ; 6, the dead coral. 



