142 MADRAS FISHERIES BULLETIN VOL. XI, 



shipment should be made during the rainy season, lest the material 

 get wet or damp on the journey. 



Unsmoked sun-dried beche-de-mer is preferred for local 

 consumption in the Straits Settlements ; for re-export to China, the 

 better keeping smoke cure is required. 



The only commercially workable areas producing beche-de-mer 

 off the Indian mainland appear to be the south-west angle of Palk 

 Bay, the Pamban Pass neighbourhood and Rameswaram Bay. It is 

 contemplated to open new curing stations as circumstances justify 

 at Vedalai (near Mandapam), at Kmsadai Island (Pamban), and 

 possibly at Rameswaram. 



The Laccadive Islands urgently require investigation as to their 

 beche-de-mer producing resources. Great reef-fiats exist there 

 which by analogy, faunistic and physical, with other reef areas in 

 the Pacific, appear very promising. In 1908 the writer saw a small 

 quantity of beche-de-mer being dried in the island of Kiltan. Three 

 species of commercial value were observed. The methods of cure 

 adopted were different from those practised in Palk Bay ; they 

 approximated closely to those of Australia and Polynesia. 



TUTICORIN, 

 2WiJunc 1917- JAMES HORNELL. 



