108 A NATUBALI8T IN CELEBES ch. vi 



■what is now dry land, he would probably find in but few 

 places walls of coral reef so dif&cult to climb as Talisse 

 Hill. Perhaps the only precipices are in places where 

 there are no coral reefs, such as at the eastern point of 

 Banka, in the neighbourhood of Cape Coffin, and the 

 northern portions of Limbe, Batu Kapal. 



There is, in fact, in this region off every coral reef a 

 talus of bits of dead and broken coral, which extends as a 

 steep but not precipitous slope into the deep water of the 

 ocean. I dredged up several samples of this talus at the 

 spot, about three cables from the end of the pier, where the 

 ' Flying Fish ' usually anchored. It consisted mainly of 

 broken pieces of various branching corals, such as the fan- 

 shaped madrepores, pocilloporas, seriatoporas, and others, 

 and a coarse gravel of broken shells and coral skeletons. 

 Living corals were not common, although the water was 

 not more than twelve fathoms deep — a fact which rather 

 astonished me ; the only ones that were alive were rounded 

 lumps of astrasas, and occasionally branches of the grace- 

 ful and dehcate Seriatopora tenuicornis (18). Of other life in 

 these depths the encrusting Alcyonaria were the most in- 

 teresting to me. Whenever a branch of dead and broken 

 coral came up it was pretty sure to be partially covered by 

 a number of anastomosing, ribbon-like bands of a soft, 

 brownish, gelatinous, fleshy substance ; and standing upon 

 these at intervals were a few delicate alcyonarian polyps. 



Occasionally a fragment of a Gorgonian came up, in tex- 

 ture not unlike a piece of solid gutta-percha cord, such as is 

 used for making catapult strings, of a dirty brown colour. 

 I never succeeded in getting the polypes to expand. I also 

 caught several large ophiurids, or brittle stars. They were 

 always the liveliest inhabitants of the dredge, crawling about 

 when they were turned out upon the deck with amazing 

 speed over the coral debris. Lastly, a few of those graceful 



