78 MADRAS FISHERIES BULLETIN [VOL. XVI, 



exhaustive examination first by a traverse from end to end by the 

 four inspection boats strung out in line at quarter mile intervals as 

 usual and upon the completion of this, by causing them to make 

 four circles round the ship when at anchor upon the centre of the 

 most important of the group— the Cruxian Par itself. 



At 8 a.m. a half knot current was running from the north, with 

 wind from N.W. ; temperature of water 8q° F. ; specific gravity 

 l,022'8o. 



Besides the work done by the divers in the boats who made in 

 all 250 descents, a large number of check dives were made from the 

 steamer. These, when compared with results obtained from the 

 boats, showed the three pars to have a distinct and characteristic 

 facies of their own, and pointed to the practical advisability of 

 uniting the three under one head both on account of faunistic and 

 of physical identity. 



The rocky ground was flat-surfaced and largely continuous ; 

 the sandy stretches found on and between the pars were never deep, 

 scarcely ever exceeding a depth of 3 inches, and in consequence, 

 individuals of the large species of Pinna, which is here characteris- 

 tically abundant, are exposed for fully five-sixths of their length, 

 only the apex being embedded in the sand. Quite a large propor- 

 tion were dead shells. 



Crowds of large Barnacles (Balanus sp.) and Zoophytes occupy 

 the outer surfaces of the valves as well of the living as of the dead, 

 the cavities of those barnacles that are dead harbouring great 

 numbers of small crustaceans and worms. 



A favourable feature of these pars is the absence of an excessive 

 amount of sponges. Such as there were of the larger forms con- 

 sisted principally of the massive Suberites inconstans and the 

 cavernous Siphonochalina communis. In the former, besides the 

 usual species of Gebia, were several of an interesting heteronereid 

 form of Nereis. The tall, branched tubes of Eunice tubifex were 

 met with wherever rock appeared on the surface. 



A characteristic organism is a Botrylloides sp. which forms grey 

 gristly-looking rounded masses of 3 to 4 inches in diameter. Algas 

 were scant in quantity. 



The depth of the water over these pars shows great regularity, 

 ranging within the limits of half a fathom, 6 to 6 l / 2 fathoms. 



The only signs of pearl oysters consisted of occasional dead 

 valves, old and much corroded and of an age which I would fix 



