138 CONFESSIONS OF A BEACHCOMBER 



swim in a walnut shell, displays its transparent charms. 

 Conspicuous, daring colours here are as common as on 

 the lawn of a racecourse. Occasionally on the edge of a 

 reef there comes the fish of frosted silver, with hair like 

 purple streamers floating from the dorsal fin a foot and 

 more behind. Some call it the " lady '' fish, because of its 

 beauty and grace, and others the diamond trevally {Alectis 

 ciliaris). More frequently is seen " the sleepy fish," salmon- 

 shaped, of resplendent copper, with bright blue blotches 

 and markings, which remains motionless in the water, and 

 so often awakens not until the spear of the hungry black 

 is fast in its shoulders. 



Another handsome creature of olive green with blue 

 wavy stripes and spots {Fistularis serratus) has the shape 

 of a garfish, and to counterbalance a long tubular snout, 

 a slender filament resembling the bare feather shaft of 

 some bird of paradise extending from the tail. 



With all its fantastic beauty a coral reef is cruel. 

 Nearer the shore the stony blocks are overspread by 

 masses of that singular skeleton-less coral, known as 

 alcyonaria — partaking of the nature of rubber and of 

 leather — an ugly, repulsive, tyrannous growth, overrunning 

 and killing other and more delicate corals, as undesirable 

 pests crowd out useful and becoming vegetation. It occurs 

 in varying colours and forms — sickly green and grey, 

 bronze and yellow, brown and pink. Loathsome, re- 

 sembling offal in some aspects as the receding tide lays it 

 bare, it becomes pretty and interesting when covered with 

 calm, limpid water, and its dull life flourishes with star-like, 

 living flowers. 



Before our coral garden was as familiar as it is, it was 

 said that on one of the reefs of Dunk Island there reposed 

 a colossal clam — one of the giants of the variety known to 

 science as Tridacna gigas. So prodigious was the alleged 

 specimen, that no one had been able to remove it, and it 

 was dimly suggested that the occupant of the island would 

 easily become possessed of a very marvel among molluscs. 

 So far, its resting-place has not been discovered, though all 



