HQRNELL MARINE RESOURCES 13 



(/) Tlie flat-surfaced reefs. The principal of these consist of Chindi, Borio, 

 and Mangimda, the first due north of Beyt Island, the two latter east of Poshetra. 

 Hanuman Dandi may also be grouped here, albeit it differs in being still in physical 

 connection with Beyt Island. 



The following particulars of Borio and Mangunda taken from the rough field 

 notes made on the spot will indicate the physical and faunistic features common 

 within close limits to the majority of the reefs which are dotted along the southern 

 shore of the Gulf of Kutch for a considerable distance eastward of Okha Point and 

 Beyt. 



Borio reef or kharaba was found to resemble the eastern or more sheltered 

 portion of Chindi reef fairly closely, but animal life on Borio is much richer and 

 more diversified. A raised gravel bank on one edge of these reefs is a characteristic 

 feature and seldom or never wanting. At Chindi such a bank is found on the 

 south side, but on Borio and the neighbouring Mangunda it has a north-east aspect, 

 a difference due to the set of the tide, which runs very strong between these 

 reefs. 



The surface of Borio is nearly dead level, and represents a plane of marine 

 denudation, the sea having cut its way entirely across the original islet, so that no 

 point remains unsubmerged at high tide. 



In shallow hollows at the north-east end were many finely grown corals, 

 massive Porites, dome- topped astraeids, a thin brittle species, and some others, a 

 greater diversity than anything before seen in the district. 



The higher level, say six to nine inches above these pools, is gravelly, made 

 up largely of worn fragments of madrepore branches, with immense quantities of 

 Vermetus, a strange mollusc forming sinuous calcareous tubes attached to the 

 pebbles. A drab-yellow anemone (Tealia sp.) lives here in profusion with a few 

 of another anemone, the giant Discosoma, characterised by a multitude of tiny 

 knobbed tentacles set like velvet pile over the widely spread disc (Plate VIII. fig. l). 



In the shallows the same anemones occur, together with a third with column well 

 sunk in the gravel, and not unlike a Sagartia but with short pinnate processes on the 

 tentacles. Several of the large wedge-shaped bivalve Pinna were found here, and 

 also the complete shell of a pearl oyster of the same species as that of Ceylon 

 (M. vulgaris), and fragments of others. The complete shell belonged to an 

 individual apparently recently dead and aged about two and a half years. A 

 fragment of another shell was picked up close by. 



Several octopus well-known enemies of bivalves such as the pearl oyster- 

 were seen, and are, I fear, fairly common. 



On the north-east fringe of the reef few algse were seen ; on the south side they 

 were abundant, making the search for pearl oysters very difficult. A hirge number 



