To burst into sight, gather force, to flash and slowly vanish--such is
the sum of life of a speck of sea-jelly. To be the centre towards which
scores of the watery meteors gravitate, to witness their apparently
spontaneous beginning, their swift, brief, but ineffectual career and
lingering end, delights this night of darkness. How many of the race of
man are there whose post-mortem glory outshines life tenfold?

Beneath a slab of dead coral on the reef there was revealed one of those
primitive and curious marine animals which has no common name, but which
science recognises as SYNAPTA BESELLI. It is a relation of the
beche-de-mer, of snake-like form, with a group of gills differentiating
the head. Playing about it were three or four little fish which
immediately took advantage of the only remaining cover, the body of the
Synapta, snoodling beside it so artfully that they were quite concealed.
The protector did not appear to resent the close company of the fish,
which remained perfectly motionless. In a few seconds the Synapta began
to extrude its feathery gills, which had been partly retracted on
disturbance. I counted the gills, and while my forefinger indicated the
sixth, a little fish, not previously noticed, appeared at the focus and
edged off to the margin of the pool, now and again making decided efforts
to regain its sanctuary. It was about an inch long and a third deep, ruby
red, with pink undersides and pink, transparent fins. Three narrow bands
of silver edged with lavender extended across the shoulder. Life gave it
jewel-like lustre. The companionship between the slow and feeble Synapta,
one of the most primitive of sea things, and the brilliant, agile fish
may be another instance of commensalism.

No one who parades a coral reef can fail to be impressed by the various
means adopted by its weaker denizens to evade the consequences of
conspicuousness. Among the vast multitude of creatures, mostly hostile to