XXIV 
FASCICULI MALJTENSES 
pits on the coast. The crude salt is carried, chiefly to Kelantan but also to 
Trengganu and Senggora, in flat-bottomed sailing barges of five or six tons 
burden. A steamer called about once in five weeks on its way to Singapore, 
and as often on its way to Bangkok, during the first half of 1901, but it was 
discontinued later, and we are not aware in what way communication of the 
kind is now kept up. 
Leaving Chinamen out of account, the population of Patani town is chiefly 
Malay, and those Siamese who live there belong largely to the official class and 
are not natives of Lower Siam. The Chinamen, however, have a large pro- 
portion of Siamese blood in their veins, and it is probable that half of them are 
really half-breeds. There must have been a considerable Bugis element at one 
time, and Anderson 1 states that in the seventeenth century there were many 
Japanese traders settled at Patani. When we reached Patani most of the shops 
in the Malay quarter were in the hands of Malays, but later in the same year 
a sudden irruption of Arabs and Tamils took place, who occupied many of 
them. The immigrants apparently came from Singapore. It is difficult to 
estimate the population of the town with any approach to accuracy, but, 
excluding the surrounding hamlets, it may reach the total of about five thousand, 
while the remainder of the state probably supports five or six times that 
number of people. 
During the nine months of our stay in the Patani States (April to December, 
1901), Patani was practically our headquarters, and we spent, in the aggregate, 
many weeks in the town, to which one of us returned for a brief visit in May, 
1902. We collected a considerable proportion of our ethnographical collection 
here, and one of us conducted investigations, with interesting results, into the 
customs and beliefs of the fishermen. 2 
Our zoological work at Patani was chiefly marine, and in Patani Bay we 
obtained several species of sea-snake, including the anomalous Thalassophis 
annandalei , only known from this locality, and the rare Distira wrayi. We 
also took surface tow-nettings at different hours of the day and night, and 
Mr. Andrew Scott tells us that they include representatives of a new family 
of Copepoda. The ‘ porter ’ crab, Dorippe facchino , which lies in the mud 
clasping a sea anemone to its back by means of modified ambulatory claws, 
was taken in shallow water, and we noted that a specimen from which the 
anemone had been forcibly removed seized hold of a Rhizostomous medusa, 
which had been accidentally placed in a jar with it, and carried it in the same 
position. When the anemone from another individual was placed in the jar, 
the crab dropped the medusa and snatched up the anemone. 
1. English Intercourse with Siam in the Seventeenth Century . London, 1890, pp. 42-44. 
2. Fasciculi Malay enses — Anthropology , part. I. 
