292 BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY. 



This would naturally have begun at Korlai, the southern point of 

 the mouth of the Kundalika, as that river is the '*■ March burn." 

 But the powers that have in succession held Chaul harbour (which 

 we now commonly call Rewadanda) have always made a point of 

 having both sides of it, and we, like the Marathas before us, and 

 the Portuguese before them (and so on backward), hold both 

 banks at the mouth. 



The coast, however, seems rather to protest against this political 

 arrangement. As we pass clear of Korlai it changes in character. 



The hills, which on the Alibag coast were several miles inland, 

 now close upon the sea in solid rank ; the yellow sands are only 

 in patches along the black basaltic shore, and but few palm trees 

 adorn the first port we pass in Janjira. This is Borlai, quaintly 

 named after the dwarf-ringed-plovers (JEgialitis) of the shore, as its 

 neighbour Korlai, after the curlew. 



It is a tolerable fine-weather port, but beyond it, the wooded 

 hills come down to the sea, ending in low cliffs running out to the 

 point of Dandi. All this while we are deepening our water, for the 

 bottom of the sea has changed as much as the beach, and so 

 we find ourselves amongst neighbours who at Alibag were in 

 the offing, and only occasionally close with that shore. The 

 sardines have come up from the south in force, and the scene is 

 lively enough. 



Every here and there we can see gulls and terns fishing, though 

 this form of bird-life is not so abundant here as at home. Occasion- 

 ally, a little crowd of them marks the presence of a shoal of 

 sardines, on which they are working, or a rough rippling patch, the 

 play of a school of mackerel. Scabbard-fish and garfish, like little 

 silver arrows, frequently leap close to the boat, or scramble out of 

 her way along the surface, and one or two actually jump into her and 

 slip through the kit stowed amidships into the bottom. 



The large Dolphins (gadha) are alive all round, rolling, plunging, 

 and cutting somersaults amongst the sardines and mackerel J and 

 just as we are watching one very lively group to leeward, there is 

 a strange snoring sound behind us, and a cry of " Deo Masa" 

 among the crew, one or two of whom raise their hands in salute. 



We turn just in time to see the last of a great black object half a 

 mile away, but the whale — for whale he is — must rise again pre- 

 sently, and if he keeps his course under water, will rise quite as 

 near as we care to see him; and" there he blows'' again, sure enough/ 



