QUEER FISH 141 



stray shell is picked up, and so far none has betrayed the 

 presence of a valuable pearl. The black-lip occurs on the 

 reefs, but not in any great quantity, and the most plentiful 

 variety of the edible oyster is bulky in size and somewhat 

 coarse in flavour. 



Apart from the rarity and beauty of some of the denizens 

 of the reefs, there are others that are singular and interesting, 

 and some whose intimate acquaintance is quite undesirable, 

 save from a scientific and safe standpoint. A miniature 

 marine porcupine decorates its slender spines of white with 

 lilac tips, sharp as needles, brittle as spun glass, and charged 

 with an irritant which sets all the nerves tingling. On the 

 reefs uncouth fish pass solitary, isolated lives, in hollows and 

 crevices of the coral, sealed up as are the malodorous 

 hermits in rocky cells at Lhassa, and dependent for doles 

 upon the profuse and kindly sea. Their bodies seem to 

 mould themselves roughly to the shape of the hollows to 

 which each has grown accustomed as crude but almost in- 

 animate castings. To obtain perfect specimens the mould 

 must be shattered. If the body does not yet fill the hollow, 

 the inhabitant clings desperately to it, wedging itself with 

 wonderful plasticity into odd corners and against niches, 

 resisting to the last efforts at eviction. Torn from its 

 home the fish is a feeble, helpless creature, incapable of 

 taking care of itself, quite unfit to be at large, though 

 apparently belonging to the self-reliant shark family. 



More than one species of fish, it is said, inhabit these 

 coral grottoes. A compact creature with prominent rodent 

 teeth ejects a spurt of water when its retreat is approached 

 at low tide, while about its front and only door are strewn 

 (after the manner of the " bones, blood and ashes " of the 

 two giants in the valley through which Christian of The 

 Pilgrim's Progress passed) the shells of the crustaceans and 

 molluscs it has devoured. 



Stones hide creatures of forbidding but varying shape 

 and colour — diminutive bodies ovate and round — brown, grey, 

 glossy black with brown edgings, pink with grey quarterings 

 and grey fringe, whence radiate five sprawling slender 



