. The Australian Museum magazine. Natural history. Thatch palm seeds. Photo—E. A. Briggs. fifty trees, each about forty feet big'ii, have to be ascended during the day by each seeder to secure his quota. The seeds are stripped from the trees upon their stems, and shelled into sacks, each of which holds about two Ijushels. One, one and a half, or e\en two sacksful are then carried upon the collector's back over the roug'hci^t of rough tracks, and down the mountain sides to the water's edge, where they are boated to the seed-sheds for packing. THE COTJAL REEF. The coral reef on the eastern side
. The Australian Museum magazine. Natural history. Thatch palm seeds. Photo—E. A. Briggs. fifty trees, each about forty feet big'ii, have to be ascended during the day by each seeder to secure his quota. The seeds are stripped from the trees upon their stems, and shelled into sacks, each of which holds about two Ijushels. One, one and a half, or e\en two sacksful are then carried upon the collector's back over the roug'hci^t of rough tracks, and down the mountain sides to the water's edge, where they are boated to the seed-sheds for packing. THE COTJAL REEF. The coral reef on the eastern side of the island is the most southern in the world, and supports an abundance of animal life which one scarcely expects to find south of the tropics. Branch- ing madrepores, coloured with delicate tints, spread their fronds luxui'iantly in the deep pools which are sheltered from the battering effects of the surf, while the hardier brain corals flourish in more exposed zones. Fishes gaily orini- mented wdth the Ijrilliant colours and patterns characteristic of those of tropical seas are to be seen everywhere, darting in and out of the coral crevices. Sea-eggs, crabs, and sliell-flsh, together with their myriad other brethren of a coral-reef fauna, flaunt their splendour l)efore the fascinated gaze of the ob- server as they carry on their allotted lives within the precincts of some shel- tered Climbing for seeds with a strap around the insteps. Phoito—E. R. Waite. A long arm, beset with waving spines and projecting from an unsuspected crevice, is the limb of a Brittle-star, with its myriad tube feet, extended to cai)ture the food brought to it by the incoming tide. A sliell, moving across the reef at a pace unusual for so slug- gish an animal as a mollusc, is found to be inhabited by a gorgeous hermit-crab, painted with green, scarlet, and blue, and tells of a tragedy by which the for- mer owner and builder of the shell was evicted and devoured to make room for the new te
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectnaturalhistory, booky
