HOUTMAN’S ABROLHOS. 147 
in most instances the initial growths of the handsome violet-tinted species growing on 
the adjacent reefs, which has been referred to as attaining to such a luxuriant 
growth in the Pelsart Island Lagoon. 
At some future date, when the Colony of Western Australia shall have passed 
its present lusty adolescence, and arrived at that maturer age when it shall possess its 
own University and Chairs of Natural History, it may be safely prophesied that these 
Abrolhos reefs, within a twenty-four hours’ journey from the metropolis of Perth, or 
but three or four hours’ sail from Geraldton, will constitute one of the happiest and 
most productive hunting grounds and fields for biological investigation to the associated 
students of and graduates in Natural Science. In addition to the unprecedented 
facilities here offered for the most exhaustive study of living Stony Corals or 
Madreporaria, either individually or in the bulk, abundant material is also to hand 
for the observation and record of the numerous phenomena of wider scope relating to 
the formation and growth of the reefs, to their environments and food supply, and also 
to the complex questions of their rise or subsidence. 
As a characteristic illustration of the earliest recognisable phase of a coral 
island, attention may here be directed to the photograph reproduced in this page 
taken by the writer in close vicinity to Gun Island, in the Pelsart group. It 
“HE BIRTH OF A CORAL ISLAND,” ABROLHOS ARCHIPELAGO, WESTERN AUSTRALIA. 
represents the first accumulation of loose coral fragments raised above high water 
mark, which, by continued accretion and_ solidification, becomes fashioned into 
a typical coral island upon which herbage and terrestrial organisms may eventually 
become established. This photograph, which has been suggestively designated “The 
Birth of a Coral Island,” was taken, as will be recognised, at low water, the weather- 
bleached central accumulation of coral fragments alone showing above the surface 
