ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 



marked on its great size, as well as on the size 

 of the burly 200-pound Elorida groupers in the 

 adjoining floor pool. He asked few questions, 

 however, until he reached the pool containing 

 some huge sea turtles, where he showed a very 

 active interest, making inquiry as to where they 

 came from, whether they inhabited the Atlantic 

 Ocean and whether they ever came ashore. He 

 expressed surpise at the great size of an 800- 

 pound sea turtle and discussed the subject with 

 the Beligian Ambassador. We got the impression 

 that he had never seen and perhaps never even 

 heard of sea turtles before. 



With a view to escaping from a large crowd 

 that was gathering, the Director led the way into 

 the service gallery for a view behind the scenes. 

 A tankful of hungry green parrot fishes came to 

 the surface as they often do for the man who 

 feeds them, and began squirting little jets of 

 water from their mouths three or four inches 

 into the air. His Majesty exclaimed. "They are 

 spitting water!" This is just what they were 

 doing. He called the attention of a Belgian 

 officer to this to him totally unexpected perform- 

 ance, and was disposed to linger to see what 

 might happen next. 



Viewing the occupants of the tanks from the 

 rear where they receive direct light from over- 

 head, displays their colors to better advantage 



than when viewed horizontally through the 

 glass fronts. The King found much to inter- 

 est him. It is said that children and pets sel- 

 dom behave well before company ; but our living 

 things responded satisfactorily. A dip net full 

 of puffers was lifted from a tank to show how 

 these fishes inflate themselves when taken from 

 the water. Most of the specimens began suck- 

 ing in air at once and were soon as round and 

 tightly inflated as little balloons. Our dis- 

 tinguished visitor found this performance worth 

 seeing and was correct in his surmise that "it 

 must be for defense." All puffers do not swell 

 up promptly, some lie gasping and limp until 

 taken in the hand and encouraged by a little 

 tickling. The King succeeded in making one of 

 the laggards inflate, and commented on its being 

 "rigid" when it had pumped itself into as tight 

 a globe as air could make it. 



We were interested in the King's height. He 

 seemed to tower nearly a head above the other 

 men of his party and must stand about six feet, 

 four inches. He had not much to say to those 

 speaking English, conversing more freely with 

 the Erench-speaking members of the party. 



The King and the Crown Prince expressed 

 their pleasure at having seen the Aquarium and 

 departed after cordial handshakings. 



c. h. r. 



THE GROWTH-RATE OF PACIFIC CORAE REEFS 



B/i Alfred Goi.dshorotgh Mayor 

 Carnegie Institution, Washington, D. C. 



THE growth rate of Atlantic corals is well 

 known through the extensive studies of T. 

 Wayland Vaughan at Tortugas. Elorida, 

 and at Andros Island. Bahamas, but observations 

 by various students upon the corals of the 

 Pacific were incomplete and gave so high a 

 growth rate that it seemed worth while to go 

 to Samoa to study the subject. 



As a result we find that the Pacific corals 

 actually do grow at about twice the rate of cor- 

 responding genera in the Atlantic. The reason 

 may be that animals so lowly organized as corals 

 grow at a rate somewhat proportional to their 

 food supply. 



Corals feed exclusively on small marine ani- 

 mals, most of which they capture by means of 

 the stinging thread-cells of the tentacles which 

 encircle the mouths of the coral polyps. Now 

 in the Atlantic the corals grow on the seaward 

 edges of great shallow flats the water above 



which is so heavily charged with minute parti- 

 cles of precipitated chalk that the floating ani- 

 mals are largely killed; and so the corals are 

 well fed only when the tide comes in from the 

 deep water beyond the flats. In the Pacific on 

 the other hand the corals are usually close to, or 

 surrounded by. deep water and there is very 

 little precipitated carbonate of lime to kill the 

 floating creatures upon which they feed. 



The large massive heads called Porites which 

 are so dangerous to ships grow upward at an 

 average rate of an inch a year in the Pacific, 

 and charts might well state this fact, for such 

 heads are common on the bottoms of many reef 

 entrances. 



The beautifully branched forms called Acro- 

 pora grow even faster and their branches make 

 an average increase in length of four inches each 

 year. The illustration shows one of these forms 

 called Acropora pharaonis. The small photo- 



