July 1960 School Magazine

Iuly, 1960

Brisbane Girls' Grcxmmcrr School Mcgcrzine

Iuly, 1960

Brisbone Girls' Grcrmmcrr School Mcrgazine

man's fist. The dark red slate pencil, Phillacanthus parvispinus, has quite a different home, choosing to live under stones on the sandy floor of the pool. Its spines are fewer, ribbed and blunt, and each is circled at its base by a fringe of short flattened spines. Adding to its attractiveness are five rows of smaller spines running from the mouth to the underside. Another sea urchin of the sandy floor is the large bodied but short-spined Tripneustes gratilla. which has white spines tipped with orange. By means of some of its many waving brown tube feet, the three Tripneustes I see here deck themselves in broad fronds of seaweed. In this pool I find the most beautiful sea urchin I have ever seen, the New South Wales member of a Barrier Reef family. Its excep- tionally long spines, fawn banded with brown, sway gently in the current, like sharp spears embedded in the deep red body pat- terned by emerald green tracery. Green, pink and brown seaweeds clothe the wall between sea urchin hollows, providing pastures for the vegetarians of the pool. Jointed mauve-pink fronds of the coralline weed, Amphiroa anceps, catch my eye first. Near the surface of the pool grows a green seaweed with tiny round leaves, and not far above it, under a dark overhanging ledge, slimy grey liver sponge catches sunlight reflected from the pool. The most beautiful seaweed is Champia compressa-tiny fronds shining green and blue in sunlight filter- ing through the clear water. However, even more colourful are the sponges which grow among the seaweeds. Colonies of brilliant tangerine lumps, Tethya corticata, seem to bring sunlight to dark crevaces on the bottom of the pool. Two sponges, one heliotrope, and the other yellow, form irregularly-shaped patches on the upper half of the wall. Both siliceous sponges, the heliotrope Haclicona has distinct holes in its surface, and the yellow has a finer texture with larger, raret holes. There are strange sporadic lumps of a pale blue growth, patches of glowing purple and spreading orange growths in zrg-zaq, patterns, whose mystery and beauty fill me with wonder and admiration. This pool is the home of many star-fish, which cling to the walls and ate scattered over the sandy floor. One variety is exceedingly common on this coast, Patiriella calcar, whose multi- coloured forms can be seen in every pool on the headland. I pick one up to look at it closely--f1s back is leathery with small over- lapping scales forming a radial pattern in an array of vivid colours. They have eight poorly developed arlns, although I have found several freaks with nine leqs. Brittle stars could hardly be more different, for they have five sinuous arms, never still, radiating from a body the size of a sixpence. Their wriggling forms can be found embedded in shell grrt under rocks. 13

practices too were begun some time since ln preparation for the Inter-Form and Inter-School competitions. With the Second Term examinations for all the School now not far away, school life is very busy and interesting and we feel that these days are the best in our school years. At Assembly on Monday, 29th Muy, the School heard the sad news that Christine Evans, one of the two Head Girls in 1957, was killed in a road accident at Laidley. She was at the time in her Third Year of an Agricultural Science Course. This came as a severe shock and a cause of deep sorrow to those of us who met Christine when we were Third Formers and who will remember her always for the affection and respect she won rvherever she went. R.H. TIIE KENTDALL.EROADBENT IEAT{JRAL HrsToR.Y ESSAY, 1959. The Small World of a R.ock-Fool During holidays at the beach my greatest delight is to investi- gate the life that teems at the edge of the sea. It has been a iource of unending interest over the past years-an interest that has led me to close observation and to books of marine biology. It is not enough merely to look with a curious eye, but as one spends more time, one must identify and classify the creatures. Having read of animals and then being able to look closely at them gives one a knowledge of what to seek. It is then that such investigation is most rewarding. I sit on the edge of a pool of unruffled blue, sheltered from the turbulent white wakes of continually breaking waves. During my first visits to this pool, I was satisfied with the amazing variety of plants and animals in the shallow waters of the shelves near the surface. Now I am dissatisfied to gaze deeper down the wall and see its vivid colours suffused with green, knowing that yet more creatures must dwell where I cannot see them. So I iake my goggles and venture into the pool-into a new world. As I sink underw ater the blurred masses of colour take fascinating and varied forms. That there could live in harmony so many divers creatures in such a small area seems to me incredible and marvellous. The pricklv forms of hundreds of sea urchins, seeming to fill every crevice, first drew my eye from the general scene. Indeed one variety, the most common,, Heliociduris -erythrogramma, carve hollows for themselves. Their colours range from olive green to dark brown and from white to dark purple. With spines of one to two inches,_ round at the base and tapering to a point, the average H eliocidaris is the size of a T2