426 Mr. A. Alcock on undescribed 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 
c 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 (Rhomboidichthys polylepis, Rh. angustifrons, Rh. azureus } 
Samaris cristatus ), 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., 
harbouring small Crustaceans. But the ground is too rough 
for the use of the trawl ; and the tangles, which alone are 
available, have not brought up many fishes. 
iii. The 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 Ganjam Coast . — The 120 miles of this part of the 
east coast of the peninsula, along which the systematic trawling 
of the c Investigator ’ 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 Ghats 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 
