136 A NATUBALIST IN CELEBES ch. vi 



fringed mantles and tentacles, the long-spined purple sea- 

 urchins, the brittle stars, the green and purple squillas 

 darting in and out among the coral branches, the octopuses 

 marked with large blue blotches, the prawns and shrimps of 

 every kind of colour and variety of spots and stripes. Any 

 attempt I might make to describe all these things would lead 

 me far beyond the purpose I have now in view, and I know 

 that my notes are quite insufficient to enable me to do 

 ample justice to the subject. 



The third section of this chapter must be devoted to a 

 brief description of the fauna of the lagoons. In places 

 where there are barrier reefs a distance of a mile or more 

 from the shore, the area that lies between the reef and the 

 shore is in the strictest sense of the word a lagoon. It is 

 covered with a few fathoms of water at all states of the tide. 

 In places where there are fringing reefs, however, the lagoon 

 is at low spring-tides almost dry, and then perhaps the word 

 is not strictly applicable. 



I prefer, however, to use the word lagoon in all cases 

 for this region, rather than invent anew one, for this might 

 lead to the erroneous notion that there is an essential 

 geological difference between the lagoon of a barrier and a 

 fringing reef. Darwin long ago pointed out that every 

 intermediate form between the two extremes can be found 

 in different paa-ts of the world ; and whatever view they may 

 take of the mode of origin of coral reefs in general, all 

 naturalists and geologists are agreed that the latter is 

 rightly considered to be a younger or less developed con- 

 dition of the former. 



When the tide ebbed at Talisse the first thing that 

 appeared was a streak of hard dry sand, lying alongside of 

 the steep sandy beach of the shore. Then in the distance 

 there appeared a few lumps of coral indicating the position 

 of the inner edge of the reef, and afterwards a broad streak 



