for tJie years JO 17-20. ix 



a few days after our arrival. We spent about ten days in Slialir-i- 

 Seistan and the neiglibourliood awaiting the arrival of our collecting 

 materials, which came on by camel transport under the charge of Babu 

 J. N. Bagchi, Head Clerk in the Zoological Survey of India, who 

 accompanied me in the capacity of assistant. We then proceeded to 

 a place called Lab-i-Baring (Plate A) on the shore of the Hamun-i- 

 Helmand, the inland basin into which the river Helmand flows across 

 the desert from the mountains of Afghanistan. There we made collec- 

 tions, probably fairly complete, of the very limited aquatic fauna 

 of the basin. The results of the investigation Of this collection are 

 now nearly complete and are being published in Vol. XVIII of the 

 Records of the Indian Museum. On our return journey the military 

 authorities placed a convoy of motor lorries at our disposal. 



A tour of a different kind was made by Dr. Kemp in the rainy season 

 , of 1917, the greater j)art of which he spent on the 

 jljllg top of one of the ridges of the Garo Hills in Assam. 



He was there able, with the assistance of Mrs, 

 Kemp, to make large collections of the insects, terrestrial molluscs, 

 reptiles and batrachia of this range, which was comparatively little known 

 from a zoological point of view. The richness of the insect fauna is well 

 illustrated by the late Mr. Paiva's paper on the Rhynchota published 

 in \^ol. XVI of our Records. 



A considerable amount of field work, by no means all of which is 

 accounted for in the list of 'ours, was carried out 

 Barkuda Island.^ ^" ^^^ Barkuda Island in the Chilka Lake> to which 

 I alluded in my last report, and in the lake itself. 

 1 have arranged to spend the greater part of the hot weather of 1920 

 on this island, which is within sufficiently easy reach of Calcutta to 

 permit me to carry on my official duties with it as my headquarters. 

 My object is to carry out an intensive faunistic survey of a small and 

 isolated piece of land in which the fauna is not too rich. In order to 

 do so it has been necessary to study in the first instance the physio- 

 graphy and vegetation of the island. A memoir on these subject has 

 been prepared with the assistance of officers of the Botanical and 

 Geological Surveys of India, and has been submitted to the Asiatic 

 Society of Bengal^ by which it will be published shortly. 



Considerable changes have taken place in the Chilka Lake since 

 Dr. Kemp and I investigated its fauna in 1914. The water has become 

 distinctly fresher and the fauna has been much impoverished. These 

 phenomena are now being studied by Major R. B. Seymour Sewell and 

 myself. Major Sewell in particular is carrying out detailed investi- 

 gations into the distribution of salinities at the southern end of the 

 lake. It will be interesting to see whether the changes are permanent 

 or merely temporary and I hope to be able to arrange to have further 

 investigations carried out from time to time. 



Other tours undertaken in the last three years were of less import- 

 ance, though some of them yielded interesting results, and I think 



