( 2 ) 
On leaving Colombo on jlst January we went northwards first towards the Gulf of Mannar, 
and started dredging and trawling off Negombo, where a new bed of young pearl oysters was 
discovered, and then off Chilaw, where there are several well-known banks. A description of each 
day's work is unnecessary in this preliminary report, but I may note here that during this and the 
following cruise of the "Lady Havelock " a large number of hauls of the dredge and trawl, amount- 
ing to over 250 in all, were made, and nearly all of these were successful. The localities, conditions, 
and results of every haul were carefully entered each day in our journal, and these notes when fully 
■worked up, compared, and analyzed will afford an important body of information in regard to the 
marine zoology of the Ceylon seas. I propose to give all this information in full detail in my final report. 
Daring tliis first c uise we were able to make our.selves acquainted with the conditions under 
which the pearl oysters live on the chief banks, such as the East and West Cheval Paars, the Periya 
Paar, Muttuvarafcu Paar, &c., and we also took some series of dredgings across the intervening spaces 
between the banks, and especially close around the banks, in order to ascertain clearly what conditions 
determine an oyster " Paar." 
We also made a careful examination of the ground in several places outside the oyster banks, 
to the westward, on the chance of finding beds of adult oysters, from which possibly the spat 
deposited on the known banks might be derived. No such beds outside the known " Paars " were 
found either on this or the following cruise. 
The water in the Gulf of Mannar generally was found to be of medium density, the specific 
gravity averaging bout 1'023 for a temperature of 80° P. The bottom deposit is mainly a coarse sand, 
with occasional hard ridges and patches usually formed of coral and nullipores. The sand, however, 
difEers much in its nature, composition, and origin in the different places ; and the harder bottoms 
can be divided iilto at least two classes, the one of which is evidently suitable for oyster growth, 
while the other is not. The characters of all these deposits will be fully detailed in our final report. 
The water outside the pearl oyster banks deepens rapidly. About a mile to the west of the 
Periya Paar (mostly 8 to 10 fathoms) a depth of 20 fathoms may be found. Five miles to the west 
there is a sounding of 134 fathoms; and out in the centre of the southern part of the Gulf of Alannar, to 
the west of the pearl oyster banks off Chilaw, depths of between one and two thousand fathoms are 
reached. The bottom deposits in these great depths are Globigerina ooze and "green mud," which 
are entirely diflierent in nature and origin from the terrigenous sand round about the pearl oyster 
banks. The very steep slope from 10 or 20 fathoms down to about 100 fathoms or more, all along 
this coast, seems in most places to have a hard bottom covered with Alcyonaria, sponges, deep-sea 
corals, and other large encrusting and dentritic organisms. Neither on this slope nor in the deep 
water beyond the clifl: did we find any ground suitable for oysters to live upon. 
Although we found young oysters in many localities, and the microscopic spat or youngest 
attached stage of the oyster in several, we came upon no marked accumulation of old breeding 
oysters which could be regarded as the parent stock from which the successive younger broods were 
derived. And as in all we spent about six weeks in examining the locality, and took over 160 hauls 
of the dredge and trawl in the Gulf of Mannar, in addition to many divings, and examined with care 
all likely spots that occurred to us without result, we are inclined to think that there is no such 
assemblage of old oysters outside the banks as has by some been supposed to exist. During this 
cruise the largest oysters we found upon the banks were about 9 cm. in greatest length, and were 
probably three years or a little over three years old ; but 7 to 8 cm. Cabout three inches) was a 
commoner size. There were very large numbers of these found in several localities and the animals 
seemed to be in a thoroughly healthy condition. Samples of all the oysters obtained by us were 
examined for parasites and for any diseases or abnormal conditions, and although a considerable 
number of minute parasites, both Protozoon and Vermean, were found, still that is by no means 
unusual amongst molluscs, and we do not consider that we saw anything which gave evidence of any 
epidemic disease or widespread and injurious prevalence of parasites. 
In some localities, such as the Cheval bank ofE Aripu, we were struck by the great abundance 
and the healthy condition of the larger oysters, which ought to be full-grown and ready for fishing In 
another year or two. 
In addition to these larger oysters, we also found at many localities numbers of much smaller 
oysters, evidently in their first year, measuring from 1'5 to 3 cm. in length, and of different ages, 
between three and nine months. The majority of these were probably about four or five months old, 
and are therefore oysters which were set free and then deposited as spat some time last autumn, up to 
about October, 1901. The total number of these young oysters on the ground is enormous. We 
estimated that there were probably over a hundred thousand million (100,000,000,000) of them (of 
rather small size) on the Periya Paar alone. It was obvious to us, however, that these young oysters 
cannot be expected to attain maturity in their present position. They are too closely crowded. There 
is not enough food for them on and above the ground. Unless they are transplanted to a more 
favourable locality further inshore, the probability is that they will die off before becoming much 
larger. Fortunately there ought to be no great difficulty in the transplanting, even on a large scale. 
They seem at present in a healthy condition, although probably rather undersized for their age 
because of scarcity of food ; they adhere together in clumps easily dredged up without tearing the 
byssus or adhering threads, and there is apparently suitable unoccupied ground where they could 
be planted out on and about the Cheval Paar a few miles inshore. 
These observations made on the first cruise, in February were confirmed and extended by our 
work on the second cruise in March, and when taking part with Captain Donnan in his inspection of 
the banks. 
On leaving the Gulf of Mannar we passed through the Paumben Strait and trawled in Palk 
Bay. We found that wide shallow area to have an even soft bottom very suitable for fish trawling, 
and it is apparently inhibited by an abundant and valuable flat fish fauna. 
The next locality that we desired to investigate was Trincomalee, to which our attention had 
been directed both by the work of Dr. Kelaart in 1856-59, and by certain letters in the Ceylon 
