REFERRING to your correspondent's letter on the swarms of this little marine animal that strewed the shores of the Riviera di Ponente early in April, I was at Alassio and remarked that the wind had been easterly for some days before the advent of the swarm. Alassio is situated on a sandy bay facing the east; on the western side of the bay, two miles away, lies a fishing village called Laiguelia; here the Velella were in far greater numbers, thickly piled on the shore, thinning off gradually towards Alassio, while beyond Alassio, at the extreme eastern end of the bay, the Velella were comparatively thinly scattered on the sand. The clear horny oval disc over the little colony of polypes, with its diagonally-set, triangular sail, places Velella at the mercy of the winds; a shoreward wind blowing for several days must end in the wreck of the little “Barca di San Giovanni” (boat of St. John), as the Alassian fishermen call it. I am told it is usually in early June that the swarms are swept ashore, and then in immense numbers—far more than strewed the bay this April. The prevailing wind in summer at Alassio is easterly.