A & THE GEELONG NATURALIST. 
transparently clear as to enable you to see through several fathoms 
of its depth; there are great marine rocks beneath you covered over: 
thickly with a growth of coral from an inch to three feet, and here: 
and there interspersed with marine plants; there is a patch of 
white sand being traversed by the most beautiful of shell fish, and 
then away stretches a field of coral of varied shapes and hues ; while 
-the caves and fissures would remind you of some gorgeous grotto, 
almost baffling description. ‘Some of the corals,” says a glowing 
writer, “are like great crimson fans woven from the most delicate: 
twigs—some of a beautiful mauve or purple—some like miniature: 
models of old gnarled trees—some like great mounds of snow-white- 
ivory chased and carved with a superhuman delicacy—some like: 
leaves and budding flowers, while all about are scattered magnificent 
holothuria and great red and yellow star fish, and echini, with their 
dense profusion of long brown spikes; fish of every shape and 
colour swimming lazily out and in of the black looking caves and 
fissures, or coasting round under the overhanging edges of the coral 
precipices. Oh! a coral reef is a thing to dream over; so gloriously 
beautiful ; so wondrously fantastic. 
OMS POLO Pa Ia aaa Faq 
m 
BIRDS OF PASSAGE. 
Bx Mr. W. Saw. 
I rrp all the best authorities arrive at the same conclusion in 
reference to this subject, namely, that so far we have attained but 
little real knowledge of it. 
The Encyclopedia Britanica, after referring to the fact of 
considerable numbers of foreign birds visiting Great Britain every 
year, and speculating as to the causes, goes on to say— 
“Returning to the subject of migration proper, distinguished 
as it ought to be from that of the more or less accidental occurrence: 
of stray visitors from afar, we have here more than enough to excite: 
our wonder, and indeed, are brought face to face with perhaps the 
greatest mystery which the whole animal kingdom presents—a 
mystery which attracted the attention of the earliest writers, and 
can in its chief points be no more explained by the modern man 
of science than by the simple-minded savage, or the poet, or prophet 
of antiquity. 
Some facts are almost universally known, and have been the 
theme of comment in all ages and in all lands. The Hawk that 
‘stretches her wings toward the south’ is as familiar to the latest 
