64 A NATURALIST ON DESERT ISLANDS. 



more wonderful and fascinating than it was before. We 

 are accustomed to regard the Hfe of these ccelenterates 

 as so fleeting, and their structure as being so frail and 

 lowly, that when we are told that we must reckon the age 

 of some of them on much the same scale as that of quite 

 the higher classes of animals, it seems to be something 

 completely startling. 



There were, of course, other forms of coral to be seen 

 about these reefs and lagoons, or upon the banks outside 

 them ; brain-corals {Meandrince) for instance, which seem 

 to prefer to live for choice among patches of marine grass 

 like Zostera. These brain corals are beautifully adapted 

 with means to get rid of the frequent showers of sand or 

 mud which, in such situations, must be constantly falling 

 upon them ; but the grass, may be, acts as a sort of screen, 

 and saves them a good deal of work and inconvenience. 



From the purely aesthetic point of view, however, 

 there was nothing to compare with the really gorgeous 

 display made by a huge bed of sea-fans {Rhipidigorgia 

 flabellum) which grew among the broken fragments of 

 rock off the north-west corner of the island, close to the 

 entrance of the northern lagoon. The water was deep 

 here, and the current ran sharp and strong and clear, so 

 that their beautiful spreading fans — some of them bright 

 purple, others a bright mauve — ^waved to and fro on the 

 rocky bottom, and produced an entrancing effect. It 

 was hard work pulling these pliant corals up from the rocks 

 among which they grew Uke masses of ferns. We lowered 

 a grappling hook to do it, and in wrenching them from 

 their homy grip, came once or twice within an ace of 

 capsizing the " Saucy Lizzie." Instead of " coral " 

 these colonies of polypes secrete a black, horn-like material, 

 which forms the basis of the fine network of branches on 

 which the polypes grow, and the branches are only 

 covered with the merest film of " coral " proper. 



Gillam was a splendid hand at collecting on a reef ; and 

 he made furious onslaughts on the great rotten lumps 

 of coral, which he dragged up with an indomitable will 



