218 JOURNAL, BOMBA Y NAT URAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. IX. 



of the water. The fish which I saw captured in greatest abundance were 

 Etroplus suratensis, Etroplus maculatus, and Gohius giuris. 



The town of Cochin is situated on the south side of the entrance of the most 

 considerable river in Malabar. This river opens into the sea out of a broad 

 lagoon with a dense background of cocoanuts, which, with the distant line of 

 hills, wrapped in a grey haze in the spring months, form the leading character- 

 istic of the scenery throughout the whole length of the backwater. 



The Cochin backwater abounds in oysters (Oslrea, sp.), which live in clumps 

 on the stone and woodwork (freely bored by an isopod crustacean), and have 

 their shells encrusted with anemones, barnacles, and mussels. The oysters, 

 though eaten by the European community, occasionally give rise to an acute 

 intestinal crisis. 



The north bank of the Cochin river is formed by the island of Vypeen, 

 which is said to have been created in 1341 A..D. by a cyclone or earthquake. 

 Climbing up the gneiss and conglomerate boulders, which are piled up as 

 groynes at Yypeen point, where the river enters the sea, and serve as an abode 

 for the mollusc Littorina undulata, were the Crustacea Grapsus strigosus and 

 Metagrapsm messor. 



The shells on the Vypeen shore, used for the manufacture of chunam, belong 

 to coarse species of Venus, Area, Tapes, &c., evidently rolled in from a distance 

 and worn or broken by wave action ; whereas those on the south shore are 

 more delicate, and suited for museum exhibition. The south shore is riddled 

 with the burrows of giant ocypods {Ocypoda platytarsis), the smaller Ocypoda 

 cordimana, and the " calling crab," Gelsimus forceps (?), which emerge from 

 their hiding places in the morning and evening, and are difficult to catch as 

 they scamper along the sand. 



To travellers Cochin is best known as the home of the Jews, black, white, 

 and half-caste, concerning whose history and customs a great deal of interest- 

 ing information is contained in Days' Land of the Permauls ; or, Cochin Past 

 and Present. But it is, from a commercial standpoint, a very important centre 

 of trade in coir fibre, cordage, kopra (dried cocoanut kernels), cocoanut oil, 

 ginger, &c. 



My camp at Cochin was pitched in the " compound " of a travellers' bungalow 

 facing the tidal river which affords anchorage, in seven to nine fathoms, for 

 craft of light draft, such as can pass over the sandy bar, and load and discharge 

 cargo in smooth water. The bungalow is a noted resort of thieves, and was, 

 during my stay there in 1886, guarded at night by a constable armed with the saw 

 of a young saw fish (Pristis), with the base cut away so as to form a handle. 



From the bungalow a scene of busy activity can be witnessed from early 

 morning until sunset. The large open " compound " — the resort of stray cattle 

 and goats, which caused endless annoyance by rubbing their noses into and 

 licking up my specimens drying in the sun — forms a convenient spot for 

 fishermen to spin the cotton thread for their nests by a simple contrivance con- 



