SCHOOL IN THE OPEN.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17835, 1 May 1926, Page 24 (Supplement)

SCHOOL IN THE OPEN.

STUDIES IN THE GREAT OUT-OF-DOORS.

(By

J. J. S. Cornes,

8.A., B.Sc.)

The "Star” has arranged with Mr J. J. S. Comes, 8.A., B.Sc., to write a series of illustrated articles which will give teachers and others a fuller appreciation of the Great Out-of-doors. They will deal with various aspects of plant and animal life, as well as with inanimate nature. Questions and material for identification will be welcomed-

UNCHANGING GARDENS

(fXIXI.) ** It was a ganien still'beyond all price Even yet it was a place of paradise.

* * * !■*- Here. too. were living flowers. Which. like a hud compacted, Th£ir purple cups contracted: And now in open blossoms spread. Stfretched. like green antlers, many a .. vseekwg head. Arid of jointed stone were ,thefe. And plants of fibres fine as silkworm’s £ •'thread, YfcA. beautiful as mermaids’ golden hair Ufc>on the waves dispread. Ofhers that, like the broad banana ~ " growing Raised their long wrinkled leaves of purple hue Like streamers wide outflowing.” —Southey. t-There are gardens which show no adde# glory in autumn, nor bareness in wintgrj nor the glad return of spring. They aye the rock-pools. Let us explore those rft.net basins hollowed in the rock, and stocked with beautiful plants and aniwhich are to be seen on the open at the Giant’s Eye, or in the inner f®wbour at Governor’s Bay. Beneath thtf cliffs, or about the isolated rocks|acks, you will find them, in the shoreyfatforms left bare by the receding tide, on- the rugged fringes of Neptune‘s kingdom. |of all our shore-world of wave-sculp-tfiFed andesite cliffs, barnacle-encrusted bipulders. giant-kelp forests, winkle and \fhyelk~ infested crannies, shell scattered r&*l shingly rifts, no part is half as fascinating as the rock-pools.- Not the stagnant sort that lie clear of all but t»e highest tides, occasionally being remenished by wind-driven spray or rain, but—the veritable sea-gardens, which twice every twenty-four hours have their limpid waters renewed from the great Mother of all life, the ocean; where weeds —or should we say seablossoms?—ranging through shades of coral-pink to purple, and emerald green to bgown, cling to the slippery sides, and cluster upon loose stones at the bottom; where sea anemones spread their petal tentacles, and where the hermit crabs living in some purloined shell like Diogenes in his tub, scuttle about for food, while fish dart in and out of waving fronds and streamers. The.se pools seem not to feel the coming of the seasons, scarcely even the passage of the years. The rough sides of our swimming pool at Giant’s Eye might always have been thickly padded with “ arborets of jointed stone,” dainty

coral-weed (corailina, sp.) showing mauve low down under shady ledges, and gradually lighter to pale pink or whitish near the surface; and at GoyBay the shallower pools, their s<Tges fringed and their shore-waters afloat with Bladder-wrack (Ilormosira ), contain year by year the same treasures even of animal life -brittle stars under the brown seaweeds (Cvstophora) growing on the bottom, and Lamp-shells under the stones. Each pool is a perfect Little world, a self-contained and selfsatisfied little world, where it is possible

to imagine the changelessness is due to a delicately balanced state of life, action and reaction between plant and animal, and between animal and animal, perfectly poised, so that each species and form might go on living, thriving and reproducing its kind for ever, independent of any exterior influence. But surely such a balance is too much to expect, such an explanation too simple, taking into account the fecundity and prolific nature of the inhabitants of such a world, and the growth-produc-ing effect of daylight on the plant life. Nature has a better way. The balance is maintained by the daily inrush and outpour of the sea, when the spawn of animals and the spores of the algal growths aro disseminated through the shore-waters of the ocean, lest they should remain to overcrowd our little pool-world; when the overgrown weeds are torn from their moorings and carried away, leaving only the smaller, more delicately beautiful plants to decorate the garden, when too large crabs and fishes, that would make havoc of the smaller aninjal life, are given an opportunity to escape from the little paradise they have outgrown, and carry on their depredations in a wider sphere; and when, in exchange, such forms of plants or animals as have been wiped out temporarily in our miniature cosmos arc renewed from elsewhere by the floating young-life of the ocean, the ‘’plankton,” and given a new chance.

Each tiny pool, "as it lies in its basin of grey rock, bathed in sunlight, its shining surface just a-ripple with the breeze, might be taken for a Garden of Eden undefiled by what man calls evil, a haven of refuge for the hunted, where peace reigns supreme, where battle and sudden death have no place. But watch! Mark the stealthy way that crab creeps sideways along the angle of the rock, half-hidden by the overhanging fringe of coral-weed. See him stop abrupt, only his short antennae gently waving; he is hunting, hunting for some living thing to devour. Watch that little fish on the rounded rock above him. The beautiful markings on his sides and fins, breaking, as they do, the outline of his form, are not the result of chance. They have their purpose, they render him well-nigh invisible as he lies there, motionless because, on the one hand, death lurks for him, and, on the other, he awaits his prey. See! Here is another crab which has covered himself with seaweeds, until his back is an algal garden . Why does he remain in the tufted corallines, or cross the clear tspaces so very, very slowly?

Here, then, is a revelation! Where all is so beautiful, so exquisitely wonderful, so perfect as to thrill us, we find death by violence, life eating life. It comes as a shock to our minds; yet why should it? Wc ourselves are beautiful. and, what is more, we can appreciate beauty-; we enjoy life, in song, and play,* and dancing; yet is it not at the expense of some other life? Let us not waste time in vain questioning of such a scheme of things, but rather be thankful that ours is the lot to live longer, more intensely, and with more appreciation than most of Nature’s children. (To be continued next Saturday.)

Showing bladder-wrack, or sca-grapes (Ilormosira) growing around the edge and floating out on to the water. These brown sea weeds are they which pop when you tread on them.

These are all. except the free-floating feather-star, to be found in our rockpools. the starfish, the pentagonal short raved “ sand star.” and the sea-urchins at Giant's Eve. the brittle stars commonly at Governor's Bay, about a rock stack just seaward of the jetty. All these creatures have a radiating system of water-vessels in their “ arms, ’ supplied with sea-water through a sieve-

plate, the madrepore plate on the back, • and supplying double rows of tube-feet on the under surface, so that these may j cling and pull by water suction. The brittle star can writhe its arms as well as its tube feet, so that it moves 1 faster and might almost be a young j octopus. The body is more pentagonal than shown here.