Page:The Zoologist, 4th series, vol 4 (1900).djvu/384

350 sea. A steamer on the way from Queensland to Sydney had a peculiar experience on the passage down the coast. After leaving Brisbane, and when crossing Moreton Bay, a thick haze was encountered, which made the atmosphere so dense that it was impossible to discern the leading lights. In consequence the vessel had to anchor from midnight till 5.30 a.m., when she passed out of the bay, the buoys in the channel being made out with difficulty, even though it was daylight. This continued for some distance down the coast. When the boat emerged from the thick weather everything (including the passengers' quarters and fittings) was covered with a fine red dust which had been carried out to sea by the strong westerly wind then blowing off the land. (Apropos of this, I am informed by Capt. Waller, who travels between New Zealand and this port, and to whom I am indebted for some interesting specimens which I hope to mention on some future occasion, that he has encountered moths and other insects whilst quite out of sight of the land, at a distance of from seventy to eighty miles from the New South Wales coast.) The red dust, upon undergoing a microscopical examination, was resolved into the remains of innumerable Diatomaceæ, a fact interesting alike to the zoologist and botanist.

While walking along the beach at Maroubra Bay (a few miles from Sydney), on an excursion some time ago, my attention was suddenly riveted by a very curious-looking object. This on close examination proved to be the fruit of Barringtonia cupania, which had evidently been in the water for some considerable time, as it was covered with stalked barnacles (Lepas pectinata?), some of which were apparently full-grown. Upon its surface was also a species of Bryozoa. In one corner a hole had been excavated (whether by its occupant or not, I am ignorant), and safely ensconced in it was the small and widely distributed "Gulf-weed Crab," Nautilograpsus minutus. (For those readers who are not familiar with this branch of zoology, I may add that this famous little crustacean is believed, with good reason, to be the one which Columbus found on the floating "Sargasso Weed," and which caused him, fallaciously, to surmise that his ships were near land. However, it is perhaps almost needless to say that this was no proof, as the animal is found in nearly all the tropical and temperate seas of the globe upon floating seaweed and wood.) In the same cavity as the