THE CRUISE OF THE ABROLHOS. 91 
large collection of things, which we carried to the edge of 
the reef. The tide by this time had gone down farther, and 
the water was low enough on the border of the reef to allow 
one to wade all over and examine it. The very edge of the 
reef where the waves washed at low tide is higher than else- 
where, partially owing to a better opportunity being offered 
for the growth of corals, but also to a luxuriant growth of 
serpule, barnacles, etc. From this line the reef slopes gently 
down to the edge,* where it drops down perpendicularly 
into deep water, as at the islands. This border, where the 
water was of little depth, and where the bottom was never 
exposed at low tide, may be at times very narrow, or even 
a hundred feet or more in width. It is a perfect garden of 
corals. Do you wonder, my reader, that the writer felt a 
little bit excited as he waded about, up to his waist in 
water, over these coral beds? 
The whole reef is alive. Here is a big head of Acanthas- 
trea Braziliensis Verrill. We must have that, so down 
we bend to tear it away from the reef. A wave goes over 
our head, but what of that? the prize is secured. We tug 
away to tear up the fronds of the gorgonias, and toss them 
over the edge of the reef into a pool of water. Now we fill 
‘our arms, never so carefully, with pretty pink rosettes of 
Millepora nitida Verrill, which we are careful about hand- 
ling, because of their stinging properties. These are safely 
lodged on the reef, and we wade out once more to the 
very edge of the reef (never mind the sharks!). Here are 
beautiful clusters of the pretty Mussa, with which Professor 
Verrill has done the writer the honor of associating his name, 
that look like great bouquets of whitish pinks. What a pity 
that we cannot pluck them whole, for they break up and 
go all to pieces, while the polyps out of water lose all their 
beauty ! 
But I shall make this paper too long, if I stop to enume- 
rate all the beautiful things of this garden of the sea; the 
eri eR A 
+» iv: zt tn tha eckatch. 


