MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 115 



the stone lay, the usual flower-like tuft of branchite. These wei'e not as 

 usual crimson or whitish, but of a very rich chestnut-colour. I watched 

 them for some time, and found them extremely sensitive to light. My 

 movements affected them but little. But on moving my stick so as to 

 bring a mere pencil of shadow (that of a steel point) across the branchiaB, they 

 immediately retreated with a jerk into the tube. The stick itself was a foot 

 above the water, and no motion of it, or of my body, affected the action of the 

 annelide until the tiny shadow fell upon it with as sharp and instant effect as 

 that of red-hot iron. 



This is a great neighbourhood for the tubicolar annelides. Serpula builds 

 reefs here that would not be a disgrace to some of the corals, and the sands are 

 full of the great sea-caddis {Terehelke), 



In a general way, however, the beach is not rich, the most noticeable thing 

 (m the walk now recorded) was an immense number of small olive-gray 

 Aphjske, with white spots, apparently beached against their vrill, and dying. 



Oddly enough, while observing these, my attention was attracted by the 



sound of heavy rifled ordnance from Bombay ; over 50 miles away, and not 



up wind either. 



KESWAL. 



No. IV.— "ST. BEANDAN'S ISLE." 



It is a trifle hard to say whether a meteorologieal phenomenon comes within 

 our scope or not. 



At any rate, on the 11th Febi-uary, 1892, there was visible from Mahim 

 Fort, Tanna district, an unusually distinct appearance of the " Fata morgana," 

 " St. Brandan's Isle," or (as it is best known to sailors), " Cape Flyaway." 



"West and North of West was a bank of clouds ;. unroistakeable enough, clear 

 of this, from W. by S. to W. S. W.;rWas a group of mountainous islands 

 apparently about 30 miles' away ; but clearly reflecting the coast ranges behind 

 us, distant from our backs, the nearest about 8 miles in a straight line, the 

 farthest, perhaps 20. 



I called up two boatmen, who spontaneously remarked the identity of the 

 apparent island with the hill& to the east. They had no knowledge of any 

 legend about such things, but thought tbem a sign of doubtful weather. There 

 was no inversion o^f anything-, 



No. v.— SPORT IN THE ISLAND OF KAEATIVOE.* 



Off the North-west coast of Ceylon, and about a mile and a half from the 

 mainland, is a long narrow island called Karativoe, very little known, and of 

 almost no mercantile importance, its only merit in this sense being that it is, at 



* The above appeared in The Field on 30th January, 1892. 



