56 MADRAS FISHERIES BULLETIN VOL. XI, 



brown not unlike brandy but with a suggestion of olive in it. 

 This the fishermen told me was Kedimir, a water that would kill 

 fishes if it were thicker as it would become if calm weather and a 

 hot sun were to continue two or three days longer, I saw no fishes 

 or crabs dead then but as I was busy with canning experiments at 

 the time I had no opportunity to search carefully. I did however 

 examine the water microscopically and to my surprise found it to 

 be full of myriads of brownish yellow Euglenids to the virtual 

 exclusion of all other organisms. The Euglenids were filled with 

 very granular protoplasm, had a large colourless nucleus, and 

 contained many minute dirty yellow chloroplasts and usually 

 several fairly large oil globules. Unlike the typical Euglenid of 

 fresh water, this species had no red eye-spot. A long flagellum 

 emerged from a well marked pit at the blunt end of the body. 

 The most remarkable feature of the organism was seen, however, 

 after the water had stood for half an hour- By that time, many of 

 the Euglenids had sunk to the bottom of the vessel and were seen 

 to have become embedded and semi-quiescent in a delicate colour- 

 less jelly of relatively enormous bulk, obvious to the naked eye as 

 it formed a distinct dirty brownish yellow layer at the bottom 

 equal to fully one-twelfth the volume of water present. In those 

 individuals which had not settled to the bottom, a well defined 

 firm cuticle could be observed, but in those in the jelly no sign of 

 this was seen ; the surface of the body was rough and almost wart- 

 like through the protuberance of granules of the body substance. 

 Hence it is clear that the jelly-like matrix in which the Euglenids 

 were embedded had been formed at the expense of the cuticular 

 layer. 



At this stage the matter remained till September 1916 when I 

 was able to visit the Malabar coast with more favourable oppor- 

 tunities for the study of this problem. 



In the beginning I made Cannanore my headquarters. To my 

 disappointment I was told on arrival that an occurrence offish mor- 

 tality had already taken place and had passed away. As nearly as 

 I could fix the date it had occurred during the last week of August. 

 According to my informants, there had then been a week's break 

 in the monsoon with calm sea and a sunny sky. Knrnnir had 

 appeared after a few days and coincident with it, many crabs and 

 soles had died. Rain and strong wind set in again shortly after 

 and the mortality ceased. For several days after my arrival no 



