52 Records of the Indian Museum. [Vor VII, 
and midnight to 5-30 a.m.) and two by day. During the voyage 
from the gth to the 15th February, 1909, twenty hauls were 
made, ten during daylight and an equal number at night. The 
total weight of pomfrets caught was 2,775 lb., of which only 
68 lb. were caught at night. Moreover during the second daylight 
haul on the roth February the net was badly torn and a large 
proportion of the catch, consisting of pomfrets, escaped. 
Dactylopterus orientalis was never captured in sufficiently 
large numbers to be weighed separately as a constituent of the 
‘Golden Crown’s” catch. It will be understood that a complete 
record of the different species of fish captured on each voyage 
was an impossibility and doubtless many records of this and other 
species are thus unobtainable. My impression is that Dactylopterus 
was obtained principally off the Madras coast (Ganjam). It is 
specially recorded in the voyage March 5—16th, 1909, from that 
locality. 
On the whole the explorations of the ‘‘ Golden Crown’’ showed 
that there were four more or less distinct trawling areas or fishing 
grounds in the northern portion of the Bay. These areas naturally 
passed gradually into one another, but there are quite distinctive 
features in each case. These areas (see plate iv) are— 
(1) Extending from the Mutlah light vessel down past the 
entrance to the Eastern Channel to Pilot’s Ridge. 
(2) Off the Arakan Coast from the South Patches light vessel 
(entrance to the channel leading to Chittagong) to 
Oyster Island in the neighbourhood of Akyab. 
(3) The coast of Orissa from the mouth of the Devi river 
to the entrance to Lake Chilka. 
(4) The coast of the Ganjam district of the Madras Presi- 
dency from Ganjam to Santapilli light-house in the 
district of Vizagapatam. 
The principal characteristics of these areas and the more 
noteworthy representatives of the fauna are dealt with below :— 
AREA I. MUTLAH LIGHT VESSEL TO MOUTH OF DHUMRA RIVER. 
The bottom in this area consisted entirely of a very fine and 
soft mud, the product of land denudation brought down by the 
Ganges and its affluents. So soft is this mud that it was always 
necessary to keep the trawler going at a good speed when the net 
was out as otherwise the latter would have sunk in the mud and 
have been lost. The speed was too high to allow of the use of 
the ordinary surface tow-net. 
The principal feature of this mud was the presence of a 
large number of empty (dead) shells of Dentalium eburneum, 
Linn. 
Peculiar rounded balls of mud were frequently brought up in 
the trawl and these when opened were found to contain a living 
Lamellibranch, a species of mussel, vzz., Modiola rhomboidea. On 
