PROCEEDINGS 



OP THE 



ASIATIC SOCIETY OF BENGAL, 



For March, 1899 



The Montlily General Meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal was 

 lielil on Wednesday, the 1st Maich, 1899, at 9-15 p.m. 



Colonel T. H. Hendley, C.T.E., Vice-President, in the chair. 



Twenty-two Members and five Visitors were present. 



The minutes of the last meeting were rend and confirmed. 



Twenty-five presentations were announced. 



Mr. C. W. McMinn, B A., I.CS., (retired), Mr. J. C. Mitra, M.A., 

 B.L., Lieutenant Bernard Scott, I.S.C , and Mr. A. Tocher, were bal- 

 lotted for and elected Ordinary Members. 



The Council recommended the following gentlemen for election 

 as Associate Members at the next Meeting: — 



Rai Bahadur Ram Brahma Sanyal, Superintendent, Alipur Zoolo- 

 gical Gardens, proposed by Mr. Finn, seconded by Mahamahopadhyaya 

 Haraprasad Shastri. 



Pandit Visnu Prasad Raj Bliandari, Chief Librarian, Maharajah's 

 Library, Khatmandu, proposed by ]\Iahamahopadhyaya Haraprasad 

 Shastri, seconded by Dr. T. Bloch. 



Babu Syamadas Mukerjee and IMr. G. Lyell expressed a wish to 

 withdraw from the Society. 



Major A. Alcock, I. M.S., exhibited (a) an interesting instance of 

 commensalism between a fish and a zoophyte; and (h) some models 

 of some typical deep-sea fishes made by native artists and made the 

 following remarks upon them. 



The specimen here exhibited is one of the few known instances of 

 true commensalism, in tlie fullest sense of the word, in which a fish 

 and a zoophyte are the partners. I may perhaps be permitted to 

 explain, for the benefit of those present who are not zoologists, that 

 commensalism is the name applied to the arrangement — no doubt an 

 entirely mechanical and unconscious result of natural selection — bj- 

 which two animals of different grades in the zoological scale become 

 definitely associated together for their mutual advantage. It miist not 

 be confused with parasitism, v.'here one animal is supported at the 

 expense of another. 



The specimen exhibited is a little fish called Minousinermis, belong- 

 ing to the family Scorpaenidie. Most of the members of this family 

 Uve either at the bottom of the «ea or among rocks that are overgrown 



