Infants under 2 months old are often evaluated for possible sepsis, hospitalized, and treated with antibiotics based solely on a temperature of 100.4°F (38°C) or more.' Differences in measured temperature of even a few tenths of a degree may lead to an invasive, expensive evaluation that is painful for the infant and a hospitalization that is frightening and disruptive to the family. Therefore, it is important to base such decisions on accurate temperature measurements. Most pediatric authorities agreel that a rectal temperature above 100.4°F (380C) to 100.60F (38.10C) constitutes a fever in infants less than 2 months old.2 This cutoff was based on early work using mercury glass thermometers to measure rectal temperature3 and was supported by studies using digital thermometers.4 Digital thermometers have become popular because they give rapid readings. Their use will likely continue to increase with the recent Ameri-

Few estimates of natural mortality have been reported for coral reef fishes, yet this information is essential for predicting the effects of recruitment fluctuations on adult populations. In this study, mortality of adult (10 species) and juvenile (11 species) labrid fishes resident on ten isolated patch reefs in One Tree Lagoon, southern Great Barrier Reef, was estimated by visual censuses covering 30 mo, from November 1981 to April 1984. Numbers of adults of all species declined linearly over this period. Mortality rates differed significantly among species, ranging from 4.9 to 69.5% per annum. Average life-span for fishes that had survived the first year of life varied from 1.6 to 11.5 yr, depending on species. Average juvenile mortality varied among species from 25 to 91.8% per annum and was highest for abundant schooling species. Different cohorts of the same species also experienced significantly different rates of mortality. No clear relationship emerged between the number of new recruits and the number of fishes surviving to one year of age. The influence of recruitment fluctuations on adult populations of labrid fishes may be difficult to predict.

Recruitment of labroid fishes to a lagoonal habitat within each of 7 reefs in the Capricorn/Bunker Group on the Great Barrier Reef was recorded for 2 yr (April 1982–April 1983). The density of recruitment of a species on one reef was not a good indicator of its density on other reefs. There were significant differences in the levels of recruitment between years. For several species, the ranking of reefs according to density of recruitment changed between years and the ranking of the two years changed among reefs. Recruitment varied differently for each species. Southern reefs were ranked more highly than northern reefs overall, but no North-South gradient was apparent. Populations of labroid fishes in the Capricorn/Bunker Group experience unpredictable variations in recruitment.

Visual census was used to sample young of the year of fish species recruited to each of two habitats on seven lagoonal platform reefs of the Capricorn-Bunker Group, Great Barrier Reef. The reefs sampled span an area 70 km in extent. In 1983, 62 species from 13 families were detected as recruits on reef slope sites. The total number of cruits, and the number of each of 6 of 16 species tested, differed significantly among reefs, despite the fact that differences among sites within reefs did not exist, and that sampled slopes were chosen to be hydrographically, and physiographically as similar as possible. Lagoonal patch reefs were sampled in two years. In 1982, 76 species of 11 families occurred as recruits. In 1983, 86 species of 12 families were recorded. All of 22 species common enough to test showed some significant variation in abundance among reefs, years, or both. For 9 species, significant year x reef interactions occurred, demonstrating that relative recruitment success among reefs varied between years. Reasons for the substantial levels of variability are discussed, and implications for the organisation of reef fish communities are considered.