426 Mr. A. Alcock on undescrihed Shore-Fishes 



namely, one from Ceylon, two from the Andaman side, and 

 eleven (including one common to two conventional localities) 

 from the east coast of India. 



A short sketch of some of the more obvious physical and 

 faunistic features of the ' Investigator's ' trawling-stations may 

 first be given. 



i. The South-east Coast of Ceylon is rocky and reefy, and 

 on the occasions in this and previous years on which the 

 ' Investigator ' has used the trawl here the bottom has been 

 found to consist of coarse sand and broken shells and a shingle 

 of irregular fragments of coral, with worn and eroded surfaces 

 more or less incrusted with Foraminifera, Sponges, Hydrozoa, 

 Bryozoa, &c. These in their turn shelter, among other things, 

 crowds of small Crustaceans — Leucosine crabs being predo- 

 minant — which, in their colour, in their form and sculpture^ 

 and in their curious cataleptiform attitudes, furnish most 

 wonderful examples of protective resemblance to their animate 

 and inanimate surroundings. The ground-fishes taken here 

 too [Rhomhoidichthys polyleinsy Rh. angustifrons, Rh. ozureus, 

 Samai-is cristafus), in the complicated and undescribable 

 mottling and variegation of their upper surfaces, show most 

 remarkable harmonies with their environment. 



ii. The Andaman Chain. — Off the rocks and reefs we again 

 meet with a clean bottom of incrusted rock and coral shingle, 

 with a profusion of Hydrozoa, Polyzoa, Comatulids, &c., 

 harbom-ing small Crustaceans. But the ground is too rough 

 for the use of the trawl ; and the tangles, wliich alone are 

 available, have not brought up many fishes. 



iii. Hie Gulf of Martaban. — Here the bottom is formed of 

 the copious silt of the Irrawadi, Sittang, and Salween Rivers, 

 and the marine fauna has the well-known facies of all Indian 

 deltas. 



iv. The Ganjani Coast. — The 120 miles of this part of the 

 east coast of the peninsula, along which the systematic trawling 

 of the Mnvestigator ' was carried on during the season, are 

 characterized by low-lying sand-dunes, broken by the nume- 

 rous creeks and swamps into which the small river-channels 

 from the Eastern Gliats open. The sea is shallow (the 100- 

 fathom line being from 18 to 23 miles distant from shore), and 

 the bottom consists of mud or of fine sand, though occasionally 

 a rocky patch with a profuse Coelenterate fauna is met with. 

 Setting aside the last, where the details of the fauna strongly 

 recall those of the south-east coast of Ceylon, one is able to 

 distinguish three well-marked bathymetric ranges of life 

 along this coast. 



a. Within the limits of the first, which extends from the 



